The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, has invited dissident MP Mr Jeffrey Donaldson to rejoin his talks team in preparation for a seemingly inevitable showdown with Mr Tony Blair over his June 30th devolution deadline.
With just nine days to go to the deadline Downing Street insists is "absolute", Mr Trimble effected a closing of party ranks in a series of private meetings over the weekend. After a meeting with Mr Donaldson, Mr Trimble secured the agreement of senior party officers for his return to the party's negotiating team. The move would seem to dispel any lingering hopes in London and Dublin that the UUP leader might be persuaded to form the Northern Ireland executive without a hard-and-fast agreement on IRA decommissioning.
Mr Donaldson quit Mr Trimble's team in the final hours of the negotiations on Good Friday 1998 over his failure to make IRA decommissioning a specific precondition of Sinn Fein's entry to government. And his supporters have been closely involved in behind-the-scenes plans to challenge Mr Trimble's leadership should he give ground to Mr Blair on the issue.
Barring an unexpected move by the IRA, Mr Trimble and his most senior colleagues now say there is no question of the executive being formed on July 1st, and are expected to press the British Prime Minister for a formal review of the Belfast Agreement.
While the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, has again insisted the deadline must be met, it emerged last night that the British and Irish governments have not yet agreed a joint approach to the negotiations to be resumed on Thursday, or what will happen if the deadline is not met.
The "absolute deadline" was unilaterally announced by Mr Blair after last month's aborted Downing Street agreement. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has since fallen into line, but The Irish Times understands that he and his advisers remain unclear as to what Mr Blair intends should happen if the executive is not formed next week.
Specifically, it is not clear if Mr Blair intends only to suspend or dissolve the Northern Ireland Assembly, or whether other crucial aspects of the Belfast Agreement - including prisoner releases and assorted commissions - would also fall.
Dr Mowlam will be in Dublin this morning for talks with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews. Discussions between British and Irish officials, including representatives from Number 10 and the Office of the Taoiseach, are scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday.
While Mr Ahern and Mr Blair are in regular telephone contact, sources indicated that a formal bilateral meeting might be necessary before both leaders join the parties for the make-or-break negotiations in Belfast. If, as is expected, Mr Ahern travels to London for the funeral of Cardinal Basil Hume, that meeting could take place on Thursday or Friday.
This might further complicate the scheduling for the Belfast negotiations. These, in any event, will not reach their crucial point until the first half of next week.
Yesterday Mr Blair again sent conflicting signals on his approach to decommissioning, saying: "It does have to happen and people have got to recognise their duty to make it happen. It should happen now. The people in the executive can't be expected to sit down with others unless they are sure that they are only committed to exclusively peaceful means, and that is why decommissioning is a part of this process and we can get through it but we can't get round it."