Ulster Unionists have told Sinn Féin there must be genuine "acts of completion" for trust to be restored and the political institutions reinstated.
Mr Gerry Adams, speaking after a meeting with Mr David Trimble at Stormont, responded by promising an all-out effort to sort out the current problems. Both parties are to hold further discussions, but dates have yet to be set.
Mr Adams insisted movement had to come on all sides. "This Sinn Féin leadership will do our best and certainly will construct a road to plot a course ahead but we cannot do it on our own and we cannot do the impossible," he said.
The Ulster Unionist leader, accompanied to the meeting by Sir Reg Empey, said in a statement that the discussions were "frank but not confrontational" - a change in mood since the pre-Christmas period which was marked with stronger language and walkouts.
"The survival of the institutions is dependent upon the removal of the threat of all paramilitarism from the body politic," Mr Trimble added.
Mr Adams, joined by Mr Martin McGuinness, warned that the setting of what he called unionist pre-conditions was unhelpful. He outlined what he saw as the kernel of the problem. "It is essentially about making politics work, it is about peoples' rights, about peoples' entitlement and we have to get real about this," he said.
He made no effort to play down the scale of the challenge that faced them, but concluded: "It is my view that they will eventually be got right but in this phase and this period, I think that unionism and we ourselves are conscious that it is a limited opportunity and people need to knuckle down to sort this out."
Mr McGuinness warned that Britain and the US could be at war against Iraq within a few weeks and that the time for solving current problems was short. He said history would not judge them lightly if they failed.
Meanwhile Mr David Burnside, the anti-agreement Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim, warned his leader about doing deals with Sinn Féin.
"I hope there isn't anyone in the unionist leadership who would even consider making a deal with Sinn Féin. Stormont has gone. The Executive has gone and it will not be put together again."
Mr Trimble will face the now- traditional close questioning at a meeting of his party's Ulster Unionist Council on March 1st. Mr Burnside made it clear yesterday that ordinary Ulster Unionists would not accept a return to the Stormont institutions with Sinn Féin as things stood.
Earlier yesterday the DUP met the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, for talks at Castle Buildings. Speaking afterwards, the party leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, claimed: "We will have elections. That was very clear today. I put to him that I would perhaps accept that at this moment he might say that there will be elections but whether he'll stick to that or not is another matter. But at the moment their mind is to have elections."
His party colleague, Mr Sammy Wilson, said of Mr Paul Murphy: "He indicated that while it would be preferable to have the Assembly up and running, that would not necessarily stop elections happening in May."
The DUP is enthusiastic about the prospect of elections where it anticipates gains made at the expense of the Ulster Unionists - possibly becoming the largest unionist party.
However, a senior UUP member told The Irish Times yesterday there was no point in holding elections to a non-functioning Assembly, adding that there were other options in between devolution on one hand and direct rule on the other.