The Sinn Fein president has reacted furiously to Mr David Trimble's suggestion that the political process in the North will have to be "parked" if the IRA does not start decommissioning its weapons by the proposed March 10th deadline for the transfer of powers to the Assembly.
In a further apparent hardening of their attitude, the Ulster Unionists confirmed at the weekend that if a credible start was not made to decommissioning by that date, they would seek Sinn Fein's exclusion from the d'Hondt process for the allocation of ministerial posts in the proposed executive.
Using some of his strongest language to date, Mr Adams appealed to "civic and business unionism" and to Protestant church leaders "to tell Mr Trimble that he cannot walk away from the peace process".
And he told Mr Trimble bluntly that if his intention was "to dash the expectations" of those who supported the Belfast Agreement in last year's referendum, he "should do the decent thing and resign now".
With the Privy Council due to meet in London, Dr Mo Mowlam has set March 10th as the target date for the formal transfer of powers to the Assembly. Most observers believe that, following final Assembly agreement on the ministerial line-up and cross-Border bodies on February 15th, the Northern Secretary will present a standing order to trigger the d'Hondt process and bring the shadow executive into being pending its assumption of power.
Senior SDLP sources last night confirmed this remained their expectation, and argued that no party could be excluded "which has not first been included".
But a briefing paper circulated by Mr Trimble's spokesman late on Friday night asserted Dr Mowlam's standing orders on d'Hondt "will not be operated" without UUP support.
The briefing paper said the UUP would have "a range of options" if decommissioning had not begun by March 10th, and confirmed "it will move to exclude from the d'Hondt process, Sinn Fein" while continuing to press "for a start to actual decommissioning".
In a subsequent interview on the BBC's Inside Politics programme on Saturday, Mr Trimble said in that event he would "construct a soft landing" for the process.
He said: "We . . . will be on target to have done everything we can do by some point in March, and we will all be sitting there in a context in which paramilitaries have failed to begin [decommissioning]."
Mr Trimble continued: "The paramilitaries need to clean up their act and deliver the real peace and the evidence of it. People need to realise that I can only carry things so far myself. People should not expect that either myself or Seamus Mallon are miracle workers. It's time for people to deliver."
While he intended making whatever progress was possible, Mr Trimble said: "If it is necessary to park the process for a while so as to tackle the obstacles created by the paramilitaries, so be it. What we don't want is for the process to have a crash-landing where it is seriously damaged."