Northern Secretary Peter Hain will this week attempt to tackle loyalist and unionist disaffection with the peace process as the IRA remains on track to decommission in the coming weeks.
Mr Hain will deliver a speech in Belfast on Wednesday which the British and Irish governments, alarmed by recent loyalist violence, hope will help to calm the current level of unionist and loyalist volatility, official sources have confirmed. Both governments remain hopeful that IRA decommissioning is imminent.
The weekend passed off relatively peacefully although there are still concerns that the violence that flared after the rerouted Orange Order Whiterock parade could re-erupt.
The Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party have been pressing the British government to move on a range of matters to help boost unionist confidence. These include the abolition of the Parades Commission, greater investment in loyalist areas, and support for Orange or unionist cultural traditions.
Mr Hain is expected to acknowledge unionist and loyalist concerns and antipathy to the Belfast Agreement. He has resisted any attempts to discredit the Parades Commission but nonetheless is due to chart a course for restoring some stability to loyalism based on the theme of a "common agenda" to benefit all of the people of Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is expected to further prime the republican base for impending IRA disarmament in what his party is billing as a keynote speech in south Armagh on Thursday.
There was some anxiety that loyalist violence during and after Saturday week's rerouted Whiterock parade might delay the IRA's July commitment to fully render its arsenals beyond use.
The governments, however, were heartened that the IRA appears still on course to decommission, as made clear by Mr Adams in comments in Belfast early last week and in the US towards the end of last week. Well-placed sources said that the expectation remains that decommissioning will take place by the end of this month or in the first two weeks of October.
In Washington and New York Mr Adams briefed senior US State Department officials, senators and members of Congress on the IRA's July statement in which it said it was ending its armed campaign and committed the organisation to full disarmament.
Sinn Féin issued a statement at the weekend saying Mr Adams in his US meetings "stressed his confidence that the IRA leadership will honour its commitments, including that of engaging with the IICD (decommissioning body) and putting its weapons beyond use".
There is a remaining uncertainty as to whether the nature of the decommissioning body's statement about IRA decommissioning - to which an independent Protestant and Catholic cleric are also due to attest - will be sufficiently detailed to convince unionism that the IRA has fully disarmed.