The North's Secretary of State, Dr Mo Mowlam, has said that there is "no doubt that we are within a hair's breadth of a settlement" in Northern Ireland. It would be "a tragedy if the option we have is thrown away in the next couple of weeks".
Dr Mowlam was speaking at a press conference in Washington after she had been awarded the Catherine and Leroy Dunfey Award for her role in the peace process. She was flanked by the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon. The Lieutenant-Governor of Maryland, Ms Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, chaired the question-and-answer session which followed.
Dr Mowlam said that she had seen "a slight gear-change this last week" in the impasse over decommissioning and the entry of Sinn Fein into the executive. This was "beginning to create an environment where I believe accommodation can be found".
Dr Mowlam repeated her optimistic prediction at a lunch in the British embassy attended by the leaders of the Northern Ireland political parties, except for Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams, who arrived later in Washington.
Tributes were paid to Ms Rosemary Nelson, the murdered Lurgan solicitor, and sympathy expressed for her family.
In her address after receiving the Dunfey award, Dr Mowlam said that "between now and Easter we have to make the transition from talking to doing. We have to reach an agreed way forward on both forming the executive and decommissioning. Unless we can resolve these issues we cannot devolve power and the agreement cannot be implemented.
The First Minister, Mr Trimble, answering questions, said that if there was a move forward "prematurely" to form the executive, "it won't last a day".
The Deputy First Minister, Mr Mallon, said that the Belfast Agreement could only be brought down by the parties who were pro-agreement and "this made it all the more immediate that they get the problem resolved and get the agreement working". The "cruel irony would be that if the agreement disintegrates, it will be because of what we did not do from the inside".
There was a need for the IRA to take a position on decommissioning other than that it would not take place, now or ever, he said.