Sinn Fein needs the co-operation of unionists if devolution is to be restored at Stormont, party leader Mr Gerry Adams insisted today.
He was speaking after a meeting with Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble where the tone was cordial but the divisions between the two appeared as side as ever.
After the meeting, Mr Trimble, accompanied by former Stormont Minister, Sir Reg Empey, issued a statement calling for the republican movement to engage in "genuine acts of completion ... capable of instilling maximum public confidence"
But speaking after the hour-long meeting, Mr Adams said pre-conditions were "unhelpful" and "counter-productive".
Mr Trimble said he had told the Sinn Fein leadership during the hour-long talks that there had to be genuine acts of completion.
The Upper Bann MP said: "Our discussions were frank but not confrontational.
"We said there would have to be genuine acts of completion and that the Republican Movement would have to do the business this time.
"It would have to be capable of instilling maximum public confidence and not something that was done grudgingly.
"The survival of the institutions is dependent upon the removal of the threat of all paramilitarism from the body politic."
But Mr Adams, who was accompanied by former education minister Mr Martin McGuinness said pre-conditions were counter-productive to any effort to put the process back on the rails".
"Having said that we listened very intently to what Mr Trimble and Mr Empey had to say and we are going to continue to meet.
"This Sinn Fein leadership will do our best and certainly will construct a road to plot a course ahead but we cannot do it on our own and we cannot do the impossible." Mr Adams said.
Mr Martin McGuinness said the meeting was useful and that both parties were aware that there only "a small window of opportunity" during the current phase of negotiation.
"It is my view that they will eventually be got right but in this phase and this period, I think that unionism and we ourselves are conscious that it is a limited opportunity and people need to knuckle down to sort this out," he said.