The Sinn Féin and SDLP leaders have expressed strong doubts about whether the DUP is willing to do a deal at talks next week which would see the restoration of the North's political institutions.
Mr Gerry Adams yesterday predicted that the DUP will not embrace the political process in the North unless they see political progress going ahead without them.
The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, said he found it "hard to believe" that the DUP was interested in doing a deal with Sinn Féin.
Both men were in Dublin separately yesterday for meetings with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, amid continuing doubt over whether the planned three-day intensive negotiation at Leeds Castle in Kent late next week can produce a political agreement. The aim of the talks is to agree a deal that would see the end of IRA activity, complete decommissioning, and a DUP agreement to share power with Sinn Féin. In a downbeat assessment Mr Adams agreed with a questioner who suggested that the indications from the DUP were "not very positive".
He hinted that if there were no agreement the British and Irish governments should press ahead with their own proposals. He did not elaborate on what proposals he had in mind.
Speaking to reporters in Dublin before a meeting with Mr Ahern and Mr Cowen, he said he had been hearing of "partial deals or delayed deals or phased deals or deals over a very long period".
He pointed out that the DUP had not yet even spoken to Sinn Féin "and in fact don't appear to be contemplating talking to Sinn Féin until some time very late next year or at the earliest mid-year. So we have a lot of work to do between now and when we go to Leeds Castle".
He said the DUP should be taken at their word when they say they want to destroy the Belfast Agreement, and "when they say that even if the IRA disappeared at Leeds Castle that they won't even talk to Sinn Féin, they won't go into government with Sinn Féin until...a lengthy period [had elapsed]".
This position presented a challenge to the British government who, he hinted, should press ahead with some initiative even if the DUP does not consent to it.
"Why would you expect unionism to embrace this process if their political leaders see it to be to their disadvantage?" he asked. "They will only start to embrace it when they see that progress is going ahead anyway.
"It's only when political conditions start to change that people will be encouraged to take initiatives, to move forward, to live in a new dispensation, or a new reality."
Noting that the British and Irish governments had yet to put forward their own "plans and proposals" he said: "The overall strategy for a process of change is destroyed if there is continued stagnation. If there is no progress then I think it is just dreadful for the whole process.
"Let us remind ourselves that the DUP are about destroying the Good Friday agreement. That's their position.
"Anyone who thinks that progress can be made with the dilution or the destruction of the Good Friday agreement is kidding themselves. We are in there to defend the Good Friday agreement."
Asked if, as part of a deal, republicans could deliver an end to the IRA he said: "We are for dealing with all of the issues which includes the issue of the IRA, and it's necessary if there is to be a sustainable process of change to do that."
Mr Durkan said his party had put forward proposals that would allow movement, even if there was not a breakthrough next week. This would be in a way "that doesn't mean we are trying to move against any one party, or that we are trying to move without any one party and we are the only party that is offering a way forward on that basis". He said he did not know whether the DUP was serious about working with Sinn Féin. "I find it very hard to believe that they are. Because let's look at what the DUP are trying to do. The DUP are trying to retro-fit majority rule onto the agreement. That's what it is about."
He said the DUP was seeking a mechanism that would allow a unionist majority in the Assembly decide whether northern ministers could or could not take part in any particular North/South business.