The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, and the Northern Secretary, Dr Mowlam are to meet in London on Thursday to discuss the latest problems in the peace process.
Dr Mowlam will not be travelling to the US for the presentation of awards by the National Democratic Institute because she has to attend a debate at the House of Commons on Wednesday in which the Conservative Party will be attempting to make IRA decommissioning a precondition for further prisoner releases.
The Ulster Unionists and the SDLP are due to meet this morning at Stormont to discuss a composite document prepared by Northern Ireland Office civil servants which seeks to combine the views of the two parties on North-South bodies and the number of government departments.
The UUP is holding firmly to its position that there can be only six cross-Border bodies, which will include the "subject areas" of inland waterways, aquaculture and food safety. There is said to be a view in Dublin that failure to tie up these negotiations last week means inward investment is "back on the table."
Despite the apparent debacle of last Thursday, when a deal brokered by the British Prime Minister fell apart, there was optimism last night among peace process participants that the problems over North-South bodies could be ironed out either late this week or early next week.
The Assembly is due to sit on December 14th and 15th and it is expected that the First Minister, Mr Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Mallon, will report progress on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
There is speculation that Mr Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, may visit Belfast again next week. The meeting between Mr Ahern and the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, last Friday, which continued for almost two hours, has been described as very successful by sources on both sides.
Meanwhile the Ulster Unionist Party has been accused by Mr Mallon of adopting a "ludicrous approach" to negotiations on the setting up of governmental departments and North/South implementation bodies.
Mr Mallon said the UUP leadership should have kept party members informed of proceedings, rather than making an agreement with Mr Blair on Wednesday night and only then consulting members of the party in the Assembly.
"It's not mature politics and it's not good for the agreement or the political process that we're involved in," Mr Mallon said in a weekend interview on BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics.
According to the UUP's Mr Reg Empey, there had been "massive hype" that a deal was going to be done on Wednesday night. He insisted that his party had informed Mr Blair, before he left London, that a deal could not be signed that night as the party leaders would have to consult with the rest of their Assembly colleagues the following day.
Mr Empey also drew attention to reports of friendly relations between the DUP and Sinn Fein while party representatives were on foreign trips. Representatives from the two parties have recently travelled in all-party delegations to Brussels, the US and South Africa.
"There's enormous hypocrisy out there that has not escaped the attention of our members," he said.
Another cross-party group, not including the DUP, leaves for the US today for two peace prize ceremonies in Boston and Washington to honour the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said yesterday that he had "seriously considered" not travelling because of Mr Trimble's recent "behaviour".
In another joint move on the peace process, the North's two daily newspapers, the Irish News and the Newsletter, published a document on decommissioning this morning. The document, which was prepared by the cross-community group, Community Dialogue, raises a series of questions for each side in the decommissioning debate.