Mr Mark Durkan, the SDLP leader and Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, is not in favour of setting a fresh date or deadline for the completion of paramilitary decommissioning.
He made this clear in London last night before his first one-to-one meeting with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, since he succeeded Mr John Hume and Mr Seamus Mallon in the leadership of his party and in the Stormont Assembly.
Commenting on a report in yesterday's Irish Times, Mr Durkan repeated his support for an implementation committee among the pro-agreement parties - as proposed during the Weston Park talks last July - which could hear reports from Gen John de Chastelain "as part of a decommissioning process".
However, he made it clear that if Mr David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader and First Minister, was seeking "to project onto that" a new deadline or timetable for the completion of disarmament, that was not what he had envisaged.
Mr Durkan's clarification followed the disclosure of the terms of Mr Trimble's appeal for backing at Saturday's meeting of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council for his strategy to achieve full paramilitary disarmament.
As Mr Durkan met Mr Blair ahead of tomorrow's meeting of the British Irish Council in Dublin, it was clear the SDLP and the British government hoped Mr Trimble would be able to survive Saturday's challenge without commitment to any fresh deadline or to resignation should progress not be sustained according to a unionist-set timetable.