The Rev Ian Paisley appeared locked in a battle of wills with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, last night after rejecting tomorrow's "deadline" for agreement on the restoration of Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.
However, as a number of DUP MPs reportedly resumed behind-the-scenes negotiations with Downing Street officials, the British government was again preparing to test the republican "bottom line" on photographic evidence of IRA decommissioning in a last-gasp bid to secure a political breakthrough.
Downing Street refused to be drawn on Dr Paisley's suggestion that the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, would be back in Number 10 for further talks with Mr Blair later today.
At the same time there was speculation in political circles in London about a possible IRA statement timed to coincide with tomorrow's planned visit to Belfast by Mr Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
Official sources insisted Mr Blair and Mr Ahern still intended to travel to Belfast tomorrow and to publish the joint British-Irish proposals for restoring the Stormont Assembly and Executive, whether or not they had secured political agreement between the DUP and Sinn Féin by that point.
However, Dr Paisley emerged from an hour-long meeting with Mr Blair in 10 Downing Street last night again insisting the Prime Minister must secure the Provisional IRA's assent to the detail of the British-Irish plan as it affects the current operations and future status of the IRA.
And when asked about his attitude to tomorrow's deadline and the planned prime ministerial visit to Belfast, the DUP leader told reporters "they'll not be coming" and suggested if they did it would be "the end" of the current process.
Dr Paisley said the issue of IRA decommissioning, and the question of a photographic record of the process, remained the main stumbling block to a deal, while maintaining "we've never been closer to a settlement".
And he contributed to an apparently darkening republican mood when he again said the IRA must "surrender" its weapons if he was to agree to the resumption of power-sharing.
"If you sin publicly, you have to repent publicly," the DUP leader declared: "There's nothing wrong with asking a terrorist to surrender his weapon. And there's nothing wrong with asking a person who has been guilty of organising mass murder through the country, and trying to commit genocide of the whole Protestant population of the Border, to say 'Give it up'."
At the same time senior DUP sources cast doubt on whether a last-minute IRA concession on the question of a photographic record of decommissioning would be enough to produce an agreement.
In addition to photographs, the sources said the DUP would require a full inventory of what IRA weaponry had been and remained to be decommissioned; assurance that the IRA was "standing down" and would thereafter comply with Paragraph 13 of last year's British-Irish Joint Declaration in respect of all paramilitary and criminal activity; as well as significant changes to the Belfast Agreement.
Before Dr Paisley entered Downing Street the sources also made light of the threatened publication of the British-Irish proposals, insisting that unionist opinion in the North would back Dr Paisley in rejecting a government assessment of the outline of a deal which did not carry the explicit approval of the IRA.
However, the British government continued to push forward last night, focusing instead on what it considered Dr Paisley's clearest commitment yet to share power with Sinn Féin, if the issue of "paramilitarism" was dealt with satisfactorily.
Dr Paisley said: "If a man is connected with an organisation that has guns he is a terrorist, and as a terrorist I will not do business with him. If he gives up those guns and gives up his partaking in crime and that is all dealt with, I can then do business with him. I may not like him. I may not like his principles but if he is elected and he is not a terrorist, I will have to do business with him. I am prepared to do that although it goes very much against my grain."
