The Ulster Unionist Party, the SDLP and the Progressive Unionist Party have been criticised by Mr Gerry Adams for not attending a roundtable meeting convened by Sinn Fein at Stormont yesterday to discuss the impasse in the political process.
The Sinn Fein president said he was "surprised" that only the Women's Coalition and the Alliance had responded favourably to his party's invitation to all the pro-agreement parties to attend the meeting.
"Maybe they had more important things to do, but I can tell you that if our party received an invitation to a meeting from any of the other parties we would make sure we were represented. I think it is very disappointing that those three parties decided they were not going to attend", Mr Adams said.
He criticised the Northern Secretary, Mr Mandelson, who in an interview with yesterday's Boston Herald said that he had offered to post-date the suspension of the institutions for one week to enable the IRA to elaborate on its proposal to the decommissioning body.
"I was dealing with Peter Mandelson and he never suggested that to me," Mr Adams said. "This is the man who told us he didn't know the IRA position. So if he didn't know the IRA position how could he then offer to give an extra week for the IRA position to be advanced on."
Commenting on continuing speculation linking possible IRA decommissioning to the demilitarisation of weapons held by the British security forces, Mr Adams said that he knew of no such effort to solve the arms deadlock.
At this stage, he said, he saw no sign of another initiative emanating from republicans. But he added: "However this is going to be worked out, it has to be through politics and it has to be collective."
An SDLP delegation yesterday met the North's security minister, Mr Adam Ingram, to urge the full implementation of police reforms, greater efforts to normalise the security situation and prompt publication of the Criminal Justice Review.
Mr Alex Attwood, SDLP assembly member for West Belfast, said that although the institutions of the Belfast Agreement were suspended, the agreement itself was not.
"Progress must be made, and be seen to be made, on the sectoral issues of the agreement", Mr Atwood said. "The government should appreciate that confidence in the discussions about reforming the institutions of the agreement is aided and enabled by moving ahead purposefully on issues of law, order and justice."
Meanwhile, Mr Peter Weir, an anti-agreement UUP assembly member, spoke of his "horror" at the level of violence in the North since the signing of the Belfast Agreement. Referring to a parliamentary written answer from Mr Ingram, Mr Weir said that 49 killings and 2,422 attacks had occurred since May 1998.
"A real democratic future for Northern Ireland will be the creation of a society in which both the threat and the means of carrying out that terrorist threat have been removed," he said.