London and Dublin sources maintained last night they did not yet know if combined British-Irish-American pressure will force a breakthrough on IRA decommissioning and avert further suspension of the Belfast Agreement.
But the cutting-edge of pressure being applied on the republican movement emerged as the White House refused to rule the IRA out of the US "war" on terrorism.
And it is likely to be reinforced this evening when President Bush meets the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, for a working dinner in Washington. The focus of that meeting will be the ongoing effort to assemble a world-wide coalition in support of American action against those responsible for the terrorist atrocities in the US.
However, it seems certain President Bush will take the opportunity to underline his administration's firm support for the joint British-Irish government terms - defined after the Weston Park summit in July - for the full implementation of the Good Friday accord.
Continuing Irish hopes for a breakthrough are clearly rooted in the belief that last Tuesday's events in the US have fundamentally changed "the atmospherics and the dynamics" of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
However, British and Irish sources have confirmed their assessment that the reinstatement of the IRA's offer of a modality for putting weapons beyond use would not be enough to secure Mr David Trimble's re-election as First Minister.
Mr Tony Blair will meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, again tomorrow evening on the margins of the emergency EU summit in Brussels, barely 24 hours before the expiry of Saturday's midnight deadline for the election of a First and Deputy First Minister.
After their meeting at Downing Street yesterday, Mr Ahern insisted: "There is no alternative . . . the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement with the work we have done at Weston Park is the only way forward." But without a further advance on the republican position - in terms of the commencement of actual decommissioning, or possibly the definition of a timetable for its commencement and completion - the two leaders are set to have to choose between a further technical 24-hour suspension, or full suspension and a move into a formal review of the agreement.
If the renewed expectations of some IRA initiative proved justified, both governments would seem likely to opt for the technical 20-hour suspension, allowing another six-week period of negotiations in which to seek to resolve the issue.
However, the options confronting Mr Blair and Mr Ahern could be complicated by a threatened split in Ulster Unionist ranks over tactics. Mr Jeffrey Donaldson MP last night signalled that, should the governments opt for a one-day suspension, he would seek a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council to force the resignation of the party's three ministers still serving in the Executive.
Speaking at Westminster yesterday, Dr Reid called on the IRA to come in from the cold. There had never been a better time to consolidate the peace process, he said.
He told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: "We need to move further away from terrorism and the apparatus of terrorism, and after the terrible events in Washington and New York there is a colder wind blowing and a growing intolerance of terrorism.
"There has never been a better time for those who wish to do so to come in from the cold; the door is open, people have to step through it but they have to continue to step through."
He added: "I hope everyone takes the opportunity to show that it is politics that has been chosen as the way in and there's no question of going back. The best way to do that is to initiate that process, to actually put arms beyond use."