The Taoiseach has called for speedier movement on matters such as North-South bodies and the formation of an "inclusive executive" that would involve Sinn Fein.
Mr Ahern, on a visit to west Belfast yesterday - his second to Belfast this week - signalled that he saw the North-South council, the implementation bodies, and most crucially the Assembly executive being in place before paramilitary decommissioning.
"The Government will insist on the Good Friday Agreement being adhered to. The agreement in the first instance says there will be an Assembly, secondly it says that there is an inclusive executive and thirdly it says the issue of decommissioning is dealt with over a two-year period," said Mr Ahern.
The Taoiseach again indicated that the current British-Irish strategy is to have urgent movement on issues important to nationalists - such as the formation of the North-South ministerial council and the implementation bodies that flow from it - to facilitate possible movement on decommissioning early next year.
"I would hope that by early 1999 that we will not only have the Assembly working but that we will have the inclusive executive, with the sharing of ministerial power, and the initial North-South bodies working full steam ahead . . . I believe that will happen," he said.
Mr Ahern, in west Belfast to launch a major economic regeneration programme, said the deadlock must be quickly broken. The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, yesterday described Sinn Fein's current position on IRA disarmament as: "No. Nothing. Never." In an article in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph he said Sinn Fein was creating the impression that it wanted to collapse the Belfast Agreement "by a refusal to meet its decommissioning obligation".
