British prime minister Mr Tony Blair was today under new pressure to ignore unionist splits andset a date for elections in Northern Ireland.
As republicans intensified their demands for Stormont polls, Sinn Féin chief Mr Martin McGuinness accused Mr Blair of deepening the crisis in the peace process.
He said: "The British government is mesmerised by the divisions within the Ulster Unionist Party [UUP]. The peace process and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement have been frozen as a result".
The civil war within the Ulster Unionists has fuelled fears the party could take a battering from Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, Mr McGuinness claimed.
He added: "Despite British government denials, everyone knows that their refusal to accord the electorate the right to vote is in part driven by the crisis within unionism".
With the power-sharing regime in Belfast suspended since an alleged IRA spy-ring inside Stormont was exposed last October, elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly have twice been called off as London and Dublin struggle tobroker a deal to restore devolution.
Mr David Trimble and his UUP refuse to return to government with Sinn Féin until they receive cast-iron assurances the IRA will disband.
Yet hardliners within the party have accused the UUP chief of not going far enough, provoking instability and speculation that he could face a fresh leadership challenge.