As the possible suspension of the institutions of the Belfast Agreement comes closer, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has said he does not "intend to spend the rest of my life trying to shore up a process that is going to be in perpetual crisis".
Mr Adams told BBC Radio Ulster: "My future involvement in trying to resolve this issue will be based upon what I am now going to say: it has to be resolved definitely and conclusively.
"No process can limp from crisis to crisis the way this one has. I don't intend to spend the rest of my life trying to shore up a process that is going to be in perpetual crisis."
He said Sinn Fein had done its best. "We have honoured our commitments under the agreement.
"We have gone much further than that and there is a collective responsibility in all of this, for all of the parties and the two governments to sort it out.
"If we do that, even at this late hour, we can avert the crisis.
"If we do not do this, if the institutions are collapsed, if we go into review, then this party, and this party leader is going to sit back and reflect in a very contemplative way what role I have to play as a messenger who continuously gets shot."
He made similar comments on the UTV evening news. The decommissioning issue had to be dealt with in an absolutely definitive and conclusive way.
"I for one am not going to spend the rest of my life limping through a process in perpetual crisis over an issue which can be resolved if people only knock their heads together and sit down and sort it out," said Mr Adams.
Meanwhile, the SDLP Assembly member, Mr Donovan McClelland, said the republican movement could prevent suspension of the governmental institutions through "exercising some flexibility on the arms issue".
"Sinn Fein must publicly acknowledge that those who sit in the Executive have a democratic responsibility to ensure that all threats of violence - whether actual or implied through weapons possession - have to be countered," he added.
"The time for political manoeuvring has almost expired - the political process now needs real movement on the arms issue."
Mr Gary McMichael, the Ulster Democratic Party leader, warned that to throw away everything achieved in the Belfast Agreement "because of bloodymindedness would be unforgivable".
In an article in today's New York-based Irish Voice, Mr McMichael said while he had consistently argued against decommissioning becoming an obstacle to political progress none the less "republicans do have the power to avert disaster". "They could make the right decision, one that would be theirs and no one else's, and restore the peace process to good health," he added. Mr Tom French, the Workers' Party president, said if the institutions were suspended the First and Deputy First Ministers, Mr David Trimble and Mr Seamus Mallon, should remain in office "as a sign of confidence to democrats that the peace process has not collapsed".
On policing, the Ulster Unionist Party MLA, Mr Billy Armstrong, following the party's executive's decision on Monday night to continue its campaign of opposition to the Patten proposals, said a change of the RUC name was "unnecessary and unwarranted".
"If it is designed to appease and placate the enemies of the RUC it will not work. It is ill-judged and wrong," added Mr Armstrong.
He criticised the DUP for its failed attempt to introduce an Assembly motion yesterday seeking the exclusion of Sinn Fein from ministerial office.
He said such a motion was hypocritical when the DUP had two Executive ministers, when it sat on governmental committees with Sinn Fein, and when it took part in the same Assembly as Sinn Fein.
Mr Norman Boyd, a Northern Ireland Unionist Party MLA, called on Mr David Trimble and the UUP's other three ministers on the Executive to resign in order to demonstrate unionist opposition to the Patten proposals on policing. "The Patten report was spawned by the Belfast Agreement which in turn was supported by the UUP, and if the UUP executive are genuinely committed to saving the RUC they have no other option but to take this course of action," he added.
