The Sinn FΘin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has offered a pessimistic assessment of the future of the political institutions.
After a 90-minute meeting with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in Downing Street yesterday, Mr Adams said the institutions would collapse if the Ulster Unionists followed through on their announcement to withdraw the party's three ministers from the Executive.
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, has made it clear his ministers will withdraw from the Executive immediately and formally resign within a few days, following the failure of UUP and DUP motions to exclude Sinn FΘin ministers from the Executive because of the IRA's failure to decommission its weapons.
Seeking to contrast his party's stance with that of the UUP, Mr Adams insisted Sinn FΘin was not "walking away from this process" and he added: "I think that we've got a lot of work to do and that depends on how collectively we can take our responsibilities."
Mr Adams described the talks with Mr Blair as "very useful" and they had discussed the responsibility of all politicians "at this time of international difficulty to show there is an alternative way to move forward".
Sinn FΘin's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said the party was "absolutely committed" to the political process, but the Sinn FΘin delegation showed no obvious sign there had been any breakthrough during the talks.
Mr McGuinness added: "I think it's very important in the backdrop of these world events that the Irish peace process is a success so we can hold it up as an example to the rest of the world."
The prime minister's spokesman said Mr Blair believed the Belfast Agreement could be sustained "if all sides honoured their commitments".
Earlier, Mr Trimble laid the blame for the impasse in the political process squarely at the door of republicans who had failed to decommission their weapons. "They could do it tomorrow, they could do it next month," he said. "If they want to wait until next year that is their choice, but we have reached a position where it is necessary for us to draw a line in this process and say we have waited 17 months since they promised to act, we have waited 3 1/2 years since the agreement.
"There is no longer sufficient confidence within the unionist community to sustain this process without actual decommissioning by republicans."
