The Sinn Fein chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said yesterday the party had not given up on the Belfast Agreement despite the fact that the peace process "looks quite bleak".
Speaking in Dublin after an hour-long meeting with the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, Mr McGuinness said the party was looking to the next two weeks of the Mitchell review from the point of view of "meeting success".
"We have lost 17 months since the Good Friday agreement, but there is no point in recriminating about that. We have to look to the future. Even though the situation is bleak we are not giving up," he said.
Mr McGuinness stressed that the Mitchell review was about the implementation of the Good Friday agreement and not about a renegotiation. "We intend to play our part in trying to resolve it."
He said Mr David Trimble was the best bet that Sinn Fein had in relation to the Belfast Agreement and vice versa. Mr McGuinness said many people in his community were looking at the Ulster Unionist Party and wanted to know when it is going to become a promoter of the agreement.
He said the issue of decommissioning was dealt with at the time of the Good Friday agreement, and Gen de Chastelaine should have been allowed to do his job.
Mr Bruton said he had had a good meeting with Mr McGuinness and stressed to him that it was in the best interests of both sides that they move forward together on all the outstanding issues including decommissioning and the setting up of an executive.
Mr Bruton told Mr McGuinness that Fine Gael regarded the decommissioning of weapons as an essential part of the agreement, "but it is only a part".
In relation to the timetable for decommissioning, Mr Bruton said there were gaps "and we have to fill those gaps if the agreement can be fulfilled".
A Government spokesman said last night that the next two weeks of the Mitchell review would be "intensive", but there was still hope at this stage.