Mr Seamus Mallon, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, has warned that the suspension or collapse of the new institutions "will damage hopes of real political progress beyond recognition" and called on the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and his colleagues in the republican movement to provide "clarity" on the issue.
Mr Mallon sets out his views on the present crisis for an American audience in the conservative Washington Times which editorially tends to support the UUP and Mr David Trimble when writing on Northern Ireland and to be critical of Sinn Fein.
Mr Mallon says that "the issue of decommissioning cannot continue to poison the political process. Gen de Chastelain should urgently establish whether paramilitary organisations, including the IRA, are committed to the decommissioning of illegally held arms and should produce a practical timetable for actual decommissioning to take place."
Mr Mallon goes on: "What we need is clarity, what we need is certainty, what we need is commencement.
"If we have these, the suspension or collapse of devolved government in Northern Ireland need not - and should not - happen."
Sinn Fein and the Irish republican movement have hidden behind concepts of "seismic shifts" in their attitude to arms decommissioning and their own interpretation of "jumping together", Mr Mallon writes.
"The time for such ruses and stratagems is over - we need clarity."
Unlike the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, in his article this week in The Irish Times, Mr Mallon does not call on the IRA to decommission Semtex explosive as a gesture. But he makes a strong plea to "Irish republicans" to make up their minds on what political development they want.
"Can they not see that Sinn Fein is now at the heart of government in Northern Ireland? Can they not see the benefit of the new institutions, including the North-South bodies, that are working for the mutual benefit of all?" Mr Mallon asks.
Every aspect of the Belfast Agreement that established the way forward for powersharing government in Northern Ireland is now being acted upon with the sole exception of decommissioning of paramilitary arms, he writes. The chairman of Sinn Fein, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, will brief members of Congress and American media in Washington today on the crisis in Northern Ireland.
Mr McLaughlin, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the head of the Sinn Fein office in Washington, Ms Rita O'Hare, were due to fly to New York yesterday evening where some media events had been arranged.
Sinn Fein is believed to be dismayed at some recent media comment in the US.
Last week an editorial in the influential Washington Post criticised President Clinton for staying silent on the IRA decommissioning issue.
The paper accused some Irish-American members of Congress of being "one-sided" in rebuking the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, for setting a deadline for IRA decommissioning, which is not in the Belfast Agreement.
Many other US newspapers have called on the IRA to move on decommissioning to prevent the suspension of devolution.