Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams and SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan are meeting today as speculation mounts that agreement for Assembly elections in Northern Ireland is drawing near.
The meeting is part of a series of negotiations this week aimed at restoring devolution and addressing concerns about paramilitarism.
Mr Adams and Mr Durkan will seek to thrash out differences between their parties over their positions and the current political deadlock.
Mr Adams has also been involved in a series of meetings with Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader Mr David Trimble.
Speculation that a move is afoot is likely to increase with the news that Mr Adams and Mr Trimble are to hold another meeting today, which has been arranged at short notice.
The key to restoration lies in the former first minister agreeing not to collapse the power-sharing institutions again. Sinn Féin see the manoeuvre as giving the UUP an effective veto on democracy in Northern Ireland.
Mr Trimble collapsed the institutions in the wake of allegations that the IRA was spying at Stormont and was active in Colombia. The UUP leader will only agree not to do so again in exchange for a commitment from the IRA that all forms of activity will be brought to a permanent end.
However, republican sources suggest an announcement of full decommissioning and an end to all activities is not imminent. Although there are signs that a third act of decommissioning could be achieved.
Sinn Féin says it is a mistake to focus solely on demands to the IRA. The party insists the British and Irish governments have responsibilities under the Belfast Agreement on a range of issues that they have not honoured.
SDLP deputy leader Brid Rodgers told republicans on Sunday that they needed to address the collapse in unionist confidence and claimed Sinn Féin's insistence that it could not go to the IRA without an election date with a bogus argument.
Sinn Fein's chairman Mitchel McLaughlin countered that Mrs Rodgers was justifying the British government's decision to withhold an election, although this was denied by the SDLP deputy leader.
It emerged yesterday that US president George Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, would visit the province next week for talks with politicians.
Additional reporting PA