Ulster Unionists meet in Armagh tomorrow for their annual conference against a backdrop of discussions between Mr David Trimble and Sinn Féin.
More talks with Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness are expected next week, according to a UUP source.
Sinn Féin will also be in Armagh tomorrow to publicise a strategy document entitled Reunification through Planned Integration. The event takes place adjacent to the Ulster Unionist conference.
The UUP conference will hear a leader's address, which will focus on selling the positive aspects of the Belfast Agreement from a unionist perspective.
According to one party insider, Mr Trimble "will talk-up the benefits" of the accord with a view to selling them directly on the doorsteps to the electorate before the end of November.
The shifting mood in recent days is indicative of a growing optimism that a deal can be struck with republicans, other parties and the two governments leading to Assembly elections and an Executive at Stormont.
The one-day conference is a significant UUP event, but is of secondary importance to the party's ruling 900-member Ulster Unionist Council and the 120-member Executive.
Delegates gather in Armagh as the three MPs who were facing disciplinary action because of their opposition to the party's stance on the Joint Declaration, are facing renewed pressure to sign up to party policy.
The UUP chief whip, Mr Roy Beggs, has written to Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, Mr David Burnside and the Rev Martin Smyth calling on them to abide by the decision of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council in September.
In a boost for the Trimble leadership, that meeting passed a motion calling on the three MPs who resigned the Westminster whip last June "to resume the whip and to accept the decisions of the Ulster Unionist Council".
There were indications earlier this week that the three MPs would retake the whip, but Mr Donaldson has claimed that they are being required to "jump through hoops".
Mr Beggs has denied this, claiming in a letter to the three: "Your application to have the whip restored should include an undertaking to abide by further whipping decisions consistent with relevant policy decisions of the Ulster Unionist Council and its Executive Committee."