The British Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, has said that the Provisional IRA ceasefire is not enough by itself and that decommissioning must happen.
Mr Hague was on a one-day visit to the North. Addressing the Institute of Directors in Belfast last night, he said: "There are those who argue that decommissioning is a side-issue. But the blunt truth is that the ceasefires and the mere silence of the guns are not enough.
"If the gun is going to be taken out of Irish politics, then the guns in Ireland have to be decommissioned. It is not just the Conservative Party that says that, nor the British government, nor the Ulster Unionist Party. It is Seamus Mallon, John Hume and the SDLP. It is the Irish Government and the Opposition.
"It is The Irish Times, the Irish News, the Irish Independent, the Examiner, the Boston Herald and the Washington Post."
He said Mr Peter Mandelson had been right to suspend the Assembly and Executive.
"I share the government's view that the best way, indeed the only way, to preserve the agreement was to suspend the institutions, however difficult and painful a decision that might have been. Like the government, we are not looking for surrender by any of the paramilitary groups. Nor are we seeking to humiliate them.
"We accept what both Senator Mitchell and Gen de Chastelain have said: decommissioning is a voluntary act. But it is vital that it happens." Mr Hague also said he was opposed to renaming the RUC.
Earlier he visited Banbridge, Co Down, which was devastated by a dissident republican bomb attack in 1998. He paid tribute to the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, and defended his refusal to continue to share office with Sinn Fein.
"You cannot expect people to serve indefinitely in government under the shadow of the gun. It is now time for the paramilitary organisations to show that they are going to fulfil their obligations under the agreement. It is now time to see some actual and verifiable decommissioning of weapons," Mr Hague said.
He urged Mr Blair to halt the early release of paramilitary prisoners until the Provisional IRA started to give up its guns. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Institute of Directors, Ms Ann Shaw, said the North's economic recovery could be seriously threatened if the Assembly and Executive were not restored quickly.
"If this process is to have international credibility, we and the rest of the world need to know that the letter, spirit and institutions of the Good Friday agreement will be implemented.
"We need a clear commitment from the IRA to begin decommissioning and a clear commitment from the other paramilitaries to follow suit."