Pressure is mounting for British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair to get the Northern peace process back on track.
Apart from the demands on his time created by the Iraq situation, nationalists and unionists - of every hue - believe Mr Blair holds the key to the restoration of the power-sharing executive.
But competing forces are pulling Mr Blair in opposite directions. The unionists want the Prime Minister to get tough with Sinn Féin over what they say are breaches of the IRA ceasefire. But the republican party is looking for concessions and despite Mr Gerry Adams's claims to the contrary, if the IRA like what they see, another gesture is sure to be on the horizon.
Tomorrow's talks will not see concrete proposals, however. Instead they will lay the ground for St Patrick's Day visits to Washington by all the big players. Bigger news will be hoped for on March 17th, especially if the US administration is looking for a good news day in the of face difficulties over the Iraq campaign.
But the comments of former Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, show the extent of the difficulties faced by Mr Blair.
Today Lord Kilclooney told the House of Lords that full IRA decommissioning would not be enough. He said: "Anyone who believes that further decommissioning by the IRA will bring about a restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland is ill-advised," he said.
"To win the confidence of the people of Northern Ireland, which has now been lost, and to regain support for the [Belfast] Agreement, which has declined, it is necessary to have not only decommissioning but real sanctions if those who decommission break the peace".
If Mr Blair moves to implement the Belfast Agreement commitments on policing, Sinn Féin are sure to agree to join the policing boards but that will not be enough for the unionists to return the Executive.
However, Mr Blair will be looking to exchange a significant act of demilitarisation for an equally significant move from the IRA. This in turn, he hopes, will encourage the Ulster Unionists back into Stormont.
Mr Blair has made it plain that he wants the North out of his hair; if he is serious, then the bulldozers will soon be rumbling into south Armagh. If he is really in a hurry then the village of Crossmaglen may become the totem of the IRA and British government exchange.
Already provision has been made for gardaí to be seconded to assist community policing in sensitive areas of the North. The PSNI will not miss doing crowd-control duties at the home of Armagh GAA.
But Mr Adams is coy. He recently said he did not think the circumstances were right for the IRA to make a move. But those circumstances could have changed radically by the time the current round of talks ends.
The Ulster Unionists are not the least bit coy. The IRA must disband, they say, or else Sinn Féin will not be welcome in the Executive.
What they have not said, however, is how long they will give the IRA to wind down. The Ulster Unionists want to be as far away as possible from Sinn Féin come the Assembly election due on May 1st, but if the IRA come up with a significant gesture and a definite timetable for complete cessation of all operations, then Mr Trimble may find himself with a new election option.
He could go to the electorate in May claiming his strategy has worked and that he has effectively secured peace in the six counties by beating the IRA. After all, radical loyalists are too busy killing each other to attack the nationalist community and despite occasional successes, security forces on both sides of the border have got a firm hold on the activities of radical republicanism.
SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan, says the map for completing the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement must be drawn as soon as possible. Tomorrow's meeting will focus on how that can be achieved in time to have the full cartography in place, ideally, by mid-March.
Ultimately, the restoration of the Executive will depend entirely on how much and how soon the IRA are willing to give and how much the Ulster Unionists are willing to take.