The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, yesterday determined that elections in the present circumstances in Northern Ireland would "frustrate the very purpose" of the Belfast Agreement.
And while paying tribute to the "extraordinary feat" performed by Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness in advancing the peace process, Mr Blair insisted the demand of the British and Irish governments for a declaration that the IRA would end all paramilitary activities went to "the very soul" of the accord.
Mr Blair told reporters that the IRA statement about its intentions - and subsequent clarifications of it by Mr Adams - did not represent the "statement of completion" demanded by section 13 of the joint British/Irish declaration published yesterday.
Mr Blair said they had needed to see "an immediate, full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity, including military attacks, training, targeting, intelligence gathering, acquisition or development of arms and weapons, other preparations for terrorist campaigns, punishment beatings and attacks and involvement in riots".
He said: "The practice of exiling must come to an end and the exiled must feel free to return in safety." And the demand not for "a general assurance but a very particular undertaking" was for "the very specific reason that each of these activities unfortunately up to now, despite the Good Friday agreement, has been happening".
Acknowledging the widespread contention in nationalist Ireland that the Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble had not been serious about making the process work, Mr Blair insisted: "I have no doubt at all that had we got clear answers to those questions a few weeks ago, David Trimble would have cut the deal and we would have been in a very different position."
However, he said people should also bear in mind one thing: "We are now five years on from the agreement. Five years ago it was in my view acceptable for us to say to David Trimble: 'Look, the IRA is going through a process of transition, you should be prepared to be in government even though that process has to work its way through'. "
Acknowledging that neither he nor the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, would sit in government with colleagues with paramilitary associations, Mr Blair continued: "I think it is not unreasonable for him [Mr Trimble\] to say after five years that the process of transition has to end, and actually, from the two governments' point of view, it is important to us as it is to him." Explaining his reluctant decision, Mr Blair said: "The question now is do we go to elections where at present there can be no Executive after an election, an Assembly but no government? Or do we accept the reality that until the election can fulfil its meaning, namely as the basis for devolved government, the election fails its essential purpose?
"It is a difficult judgment, but I have to make it, that if we have the election now without agreement we will simply make eventual agreement, and the eventual basis for devolved government . . . in other words we will frustrate the very purpose of the Good Friday agreement."
Asked if the Rev Ian Paisley's personal abuse of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, had informed his judgment, Mr Blair replied: "Well, I hope that anybody that seriously believed if you ended up with the DUP in a position of authority after the election, he would have any prospect of getting progress on a cross-community basis, the remarks of Dr Paisley the other day, which I thought were appalling, should convince people otherwise."