The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, last night urged the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein to step back from the brink of a collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The SDLP deputy leader said it was still possible, if the will was present, to ensure that the matter was resolved.
Mr Mallon was speaking following a 90-minute meeting with the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson. Mr Mandelson held a series of separate meetings with parties at Castle Buildings, Stormont, yesterday.
Mr Mallon said the British and Irish governments were considering a number of options, some of which he would not like.
Referring to the UUP leader and First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and Sinn Fein's president, Mr Gerry Adams, he said: "I would say to both, stand back from the brink that you're standing on now. Stand back from the brink that you're having everybody else standing on. Stand back from the brink and the chasm that faces the entire community.
"Assess your position and see if both of their present positions are worth the difficulties that are going to be caused for everybody, not least the people of the North of Ireland who very much want the institutions to work."
The UUP's Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Sir Reg Empey, called for the immediate publication of Gen John de Chastelain's report on decommissioning.
"Continuing to withhold that report is going to damage the decommissioning body's credibility with the wider community because the suspicion remains, and will be exaggerated by further delay, that attempts are being made to pressurise the decommissioning body into saying something that it does not wish to say."
Sinn Fein Assembly member Mr Gerry Kelly emerged from his party's meeting with Mr Mandel son saying he thought it likely the British government would opt to suspend the political institutions. He said this was the wrong option, which he urged the government to resist. The Ulster Democratic Party, which has links with the UDA, called on the SDLP to exclude Sinn Fein from the Executive if no solution to the decommissioning dispute could be found.
Its spokesman, Mr David Adams, said after meeting Mr Mandelson that it was looking very likely that a review would again be called by the government.
"It isn't a case about trying to shift blame on a section of nationalism," he said. "It is a case of us saying on behalf of all the people of Northern Ireland quite honestly and quite sincerely to the SDLP `You really have to look at your own position on this'.
"Seamus Mallon has already indicated these past few days that he believes that there were understandings given by republicans at the Stormont review and that he believes also that those understandings haven't been honoured.
"The logic of that is that there have to be sanctions for not honouring commitments or understandings made. To keep this process alive, and to keep the institutions that have been put in place alive, the logic of that is for the SDLP to agree to move on, without Sinn Fein if necessary."
The Progressive Unionist Par ty, which has links with the UVF, said all parties to the peace process should be involved in the resolution of the impasse.
"What I want to see is a solid, full suspense of everything and a formula of dialogue beyond that point involving all parties," the party's leader, Mr David Ervine, said.
Women's Coalition Assembly member Ms Monica McWilliams said her party had "minimalist hopes" that both governments could keep the political process alive. She was disappointed that the pro-agreement parties had not been able to manage the political process successfully since Senator George Mitchell completed his review last November.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said Mr Mandelson had been "taken for a ride, as has the whole government. The IRA is pocketing every concession and giving nothing in re turn." Any future review should include only those politicians committed to democratic and peaceful means.