The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has offered to name potential ministers in the Stormont Assembly provided this was followed by actions from republicans to show they had left violence behind for good.
There was swift and negative reaction to the Trimble initiative from Sinn Fein. "Mr Trimble continues to attempt to rewrite the Good Friday agreement in his own terms, and on the basis of the Hillsborough draft, which everyone else has now abandoned," said the party chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin. Mr Trimble outlined what he described as "a sequence of events". First, there would be "the initial procedural steps towards creating an executive", i.e., potential ministers would be identified under the d'Hondt principle of proportionality, but there would be no shadow executive.
Second, "the paramilitaries would respond by actions to show conclusively that they had left terrorism behind". Then, as the third and final part of the sequence, "the executive would be formed and power devolved to the Assembly".
Outlining his proposals in a Belfast Telegraph article, Mr Trimble said he looked forward to working with "democratic nationalists" to build a better Northern Ireland but could not disguise "that we are facing a difficult crisis".
It was not his intention to humiliate or exclude republicans - "but there cannot be co-operation in government with those who retain the option of returning to violence". But the crisis could be resolved: "Ironically, it was Mr Adams who pointed to the solution. In March he said that we should `jump together'."
Mr Trimble called for "a reaffirmation by government and other parties that decommissioning is an obligation under the Agreement". ein inclusion in an executive. Stressing the need for decommissioning, he said: "I cannot be moved from this position and nor can the Prime Minister on the basis of his public pledges to society in Northern Ireland."
Mr Trimble is to meet Mr Adams at Stormont this morning. Sinn Fein said its leader would "seek to persuade Mr Trimble to honour the commitments he made in the Good Friday agreement and establish the shadow executive as set out in the agreement before the EU election next week".
However, Sinn Fein warned that "the UUP's agenda clearly remains one of precondition, exclusion, prevarication, stalling and the rewriting of the Good Friday agreement".
Meanwhile, in a speech to the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor, described the proposed Northern executive as "essentially an involuntary coalition".
"These arrangements are deliberately inclusive, and the idea of proportionality in allocating government ministries originated with my own party. Our aim has been to offer paramilitaries a significant role in the new administration, to construct an integrated Ulster as a widely-acceptable alternative to a united Ireland.
"The balanced nature of this governmental structure also includes a committee system to provide maximum democratic accountability. Each of our ten 10 new government departments will have a committee headed by someone from a different party to that department's minister to scrutinise legislation and performance.
"You can easily see that these are complex and innovative administrative arrangements but I am confident that we can make them work, for at the core of the involuntary coalition lies a voluntary coalition of the moderate nationalist and unionist parties who together negotiated the detail of this deal."
He continued: "Although all aspects of the agreement have been delivered by the fully democratic parties, the parties associated with paramilitary organisations are not keeping their side of the bargain. To date, no weapons whatsoever have been handed in by any of the main paramilitary organisations, loyalist or republican." On a hopeful note, Mr Taylor said: "Despite these difficulties I remain optimistic. I believe that political violence is a thing of the past."