The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, is reportedly geared up for a confrontation with the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, when they meet at Chequers this morning to address the political fallout from the Northern Bank robbery.
Mr Adams dismissed this prospect yesterday, as he challenged Irish Government and opposition parties to test Sinn Féin's credibility over the management of the peace process by contesting the party's seats in the forthcoming British general election.
At the same time Mr Adams described ministerial accounts of his meeting with the Taoiseach on Tuesday as "gross misrepresentation", while professing himself confident that "people are sophisticated, that they appreciate that making peace is hugely difficult and dangerous".
The Sinn Féin leader made his comments at a Westminster press conference scheduled before the postponement until this morning of his first meeting with Mr Blair since the Northern Bank robbery, attributed by both governments and the PSNI to the IRA.
While maintaining that the focus should be on straightening out the difficulties in the peace process - and his belief that in time they could and would be - Mr Adams accused the Government of using the current political vacuum to open an assault on Sinn Féin.
"In the short term it strikes me, because the Irish Government has decided that little progress can be made in the next few months, that it is full frontal assault on Sinn Féin for electoral reasons and for sectional party political reasons," he said.
When it was put to him that he could not level that charge against Mr Blair, Mr Adams said he had not done so, and instead noted the Prime Minister's continuing commitment to an "inclusive" settlement in Northern Ireland.
He said he could "hear Tom Kelly [ Mr Blair's official spokesman] at his work" in characterising today's meeting as a confrontation.
"No one should think for one moment that we're going to be at a meeting which will be characterised by the spin," he said.
"Tony Blair knows us well enough, knows what has been achieved, knows his own contribution to it, knows our contribution to it, and knows that confrontation just won't work."
That assessment was dismissed in Whitehall last night as senior sources pointed to Mr Blair's declared determination in the Commons on Wednesday to tell Sinn Féin there would be no solution unless the party secured the end of all IRA paramilitary and criminal activity.
Rejecting what he called "the outrageous commentary" from the Government, Mr Adams suggested the Taoiseach had "cleverly defused" any attention to the Ray Burke affair by opening up "a full frontal attack" on Sinn Féin.
And he said claims by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, that they left Tuesday's meeting with the Taoiseach and agreed "to go off and reflect on how we would deal with the issue of criminality" were "gross misrepresentation and in fact untrue."
Mr Adams suggested they had agreed rather on a range of the outstanding issues to be resolved and to meet again after the Taoiseach's meeting with Mr Blair next week.
While directing his strongest fire at what he termed "the PD [Progressive Democrats] agenda", Mr Adams said any of the opposition or Government parties in Dublin would be very welcome to test Sinn Féin's credibility by opposing any of the party's four MPs in the forthcoming British general election.