The North's former deputy first minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, has said he believes the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein will take part in Senator George Mitchell's review of the Belfast Agreement which begins next week.
Neither party has announced its decision on whether to take part in the review. The UUP Assembly party met at Stormont yesterday but no decision was made. A party executive meeting is due to take place tomorrow.
Sinn Fein is expected to announce its decision after an ardchomhairle meeting tomorrow. However, Mr Mallon accused both parties of "playing a foolish, silly game". He predicted they would both take part in the review.
"Giving the impression that they still have to decide is bad for them and the political process. Of course they will be there. They will be there for the very same reasons that everyone else will be there. There is far too much at stake for them to be sitting skulking in the corner."
Mr Mallon said he did not regret resigning in July as it had focused minds on the process. He said the review was a "focal point for everybody who wants to make that agreement work". The ordinary people of Northern Ireland wanted the peace process to succeed and "no one has a right to take away that hope".
The UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, has said he does not believe the review stands much chance of success. He blamed Sinn Fein for the deadlock in the peace process. In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, he said: "I don't think the Sinn Fein leadership will rise to the challenge of declaring themselves for the democratic way.
"They have had 18 months to do it and they ain't done it yet, and in some ways they're going backwards. I can't see the prospect in the next month or two which means that I can't, as things stand at the moment, see any prospect of the review succeeding."
He said he did not want the process to collapse and he would be talking with the British government and the other parties over the next few days.
Mr Trimble disclosed that he had been told of the decision by the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, that the Provisional IRA ceasefire had not been broken half-an-hour before it was announced. He had advised her to follow a line suggested by the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, to set a "high standard of behaviour", be "appropriately condemnatory" and admit there was a problem.
"By doing it that way you would be maintaining your own standards, you wouldn't be accepting the standards of the terrorists, you wouldn't be giving in to them . . . She didn't do any of these things."
Mr Trimble said the fundamental question that had to be answered if the peace process was to succeed was whether para militaries were committed to change.
"The matter of forming an inclusive executive and the problem of decommissioning are important but they are detail compared to the fundamental question - is there indeed a commitment by paramilitaries to change?"
He said he could not tell whether Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness were genuinely committed to abandoning violence. "However, if you give them the benefit of the doubt and say they might be sincere, you then have to conclude they have failed."
He said he had heard from intelligence sources that the Provisionals had tried to smuggle handguns from the US because they needed the right weapons for certain operations.
"They had a shortage of high-quality handguns needed for close-quarter killings. The Belfast brigade in particular needed those weapons - this is the word that's coming through, it's all very well having AK-47s but you can't use them in built-up areas."
Mr Trimble also expressed deep misgivings about what the Patten Commission may recommend on the future of the RUC. He said he believed the recent leaks were accurate.
The Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, last night said he stood by every word of his recent attack on Mr Tony Blair's handling of the peace process, and warned there was no "blank cheque" for bipartisan support.
The British Prime Minister had replied by accusing the Tory leader of insulting his intelligence with the attacks.