Downing Street held secret talks this week with Sinn Féin leaders Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness ahead of yesterday's opening of the review of the Belfast Agreement at Stormont.
It emerged yesterday that the Sinn Féin president, Mr Adams, and the party's chief negotiator Mr McGuinness, separate to the review, went to Downing Street on Monday where they met British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair's chief of staff, Mr Jonathan Powell. Future such meetings are planned, sources said, some of which could be directly with Mr Blair when he finds time to more fully engage with the peace process.
It is understood that part of the focus of Monday's meeting was on whether the IRA would end activity and allow for more transparent decommissioning in order to assist in restoring devolution.
Neither Mr Adams nor Downing Street would even confirm that this meeting took place, while the Northern Secretary Mr Paul Murphy, when asked yesterday was the review secondary to such negotiations, would only say "there is nothing wrong in individual parties talking to the governments or each other". While the British government is committed to the political review of the agreement, it also realises that without maintaining contact with the broad republican movement there is little prospect of a resolution, according to informed sources.
This is because, as the SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan insisted at the review yesterday, the "two crux issues" necessary to be resolved to restore devolution are ending paramilitarism and persuading unionists to share power with Sinn Féin and the SDLP.
While the review is addressing, among many issues, whether unionist politicians can fully commit themselves to power-sharing, Downing Street believes a separate line of communication with the Sinn Féin leaders is required to establish whether the IRA will end activity, one source explained.
There has been similar contact with loyalist representatives. In the past ten days the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and Northern Secretary, Mr Murphy, separately met the Ulster Political Research Group, which speaks for the UDA and which has no political representatives in the Assembly.
Mr David Ervine, as leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the UVF, is in a position to inform the two governments of that organisation's thinking. At Stormont yesterday Mr Adams said he would not permit the agreement to be "tweaked or twiddled or subverted". He said the British government was presenting the situation as a problem of republican violence, but insisted "Sinn Féin has set our face against violence". Further review meetings will continue until Easter when the governments will review progress.
It will meet on Mondays to deal with issues internal to Northern Ireland, at which the Government will not be represented, and on Tuesdays to deal with North-South and East-West matters. The political spotlight will again fall on Downing Street tomorrow when the DUP leader, Dr Ian Paisley, and his senior colleagues will brief Mr Blair on their proposals for reinstating the Assembly and Northern Executive. Dr Paisley with MPs such as Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Jeffrey Donaldson will outline to Mr Blair first, rather than to the review, how an interim form of Stormont administration might operate that could involve Sinn Féin. Dr Paisley would not elaborate on the party's proposals, which will be published on Friday, but again insisted that the DUP would not share power with Sinn Féin in a collective cabinet-type executive. "IRA/Sinn Féin will not be in the frame at all," said Dr Paisley. The governments and the parties are withholding judgment until they see the DUP's proposals.
Sinn Féin and the SDLP, however, insisted that they would not accept anything that sought to restore simple majority rule.