The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said in Sydney yesterday that politics, not the issue of disarmament, posed the greatest threat to the peace process.
"The peace process is under constant threat, under constant danger, but the biggest threat to it is the refusal by political leaders to fulfil their political commitments," he said during his eight-day visit to Australia. He called on the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to show courage and push for a power-sharing executive even if the disarmament issue remained unresolved.
"I put it to the British Prime Minister that he is morally and politically tied to bringing in the institutions by March 10th.
"I think the British Prime Minister and the British government have to particularly play a very, very positive and courageous role in the next period ahead of us."
Mr Adams arrived on Sunday. He is not scheduled to meet senior government ministers.
He said the bulk of the Belfast Agreement would not be implemented by the deadline. He added that the agreement was at a precarious stage as the Ulster Unionist Party refused to sit with Sinn Fein until the IRA decommissioned its weapons. The disarmament issue was not part of the agreement and should not prevent the establishment of a 10-minister executive by the March deadline.
"The British government needs to move ahead. There is no precondition within this agreement or within the whole process," Mr Adams told a news conference.
The Sinn Fein president said that while sectarian violence continued, the IRA had been taking its guns out of commission since its ceasefire, contributing to the peace process.
The peace process had been "painfully slow", and open conflict remained a present danger.
Amnesty arrangements for decommissioning weapons held by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland are to be extended for a further year under an Order approved at Westminster last night. The scheme will now run until February 24th, 2000. The deadline for decommissioning under the Good Friday Agreement is May, 2000. The Order, which was approved by the Lords last week, was passed by the House of Commons without a vote.