The British and Irish governments are expected to use today's positive assessment of IRA activity to press the Democratic Unionists to work towards an imminent power-sharing deal with Sinn Féin.
The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) is due to report that IRA activity is being wound up and that the main remaining paramilitary threat emanates from dissident republicans, a move regarded by London and Dublin as the most "significant" to date.
Speaking in Madrid last night, British prime minister Tony Blair referred to the difficulties that have beset the Belfast Agreement since 1998, but added there was now cause for optimism.
Referring to today's IMC report, he said: "I hope that report is positive. If it is it will indicate that the conflict is truly over and we can build a shared future."
He said the one thing he had learned after many years of the process was that "there is no way to make things work other than by patient determination to succeed".
"The truth is, resolving these very long-standing issues is difficult work. It doesn't happen overnight, and there will be constant obstacles that appear on the path to progress.
"But I think we have got to keep going, and I hope the report will confirm it was right to keep going."
The tone for today's report, to be released at noon, was laid last month when the IMC said that the IRA was dedicated to politics and not engaged in paramilitary activity.
Prominent DUP figures insisted yesterday the party would not be pressed into any deal which did not reach a threshold of acceptability for unionists.