Blair to demand Sinn Fein pledge that armed struggle is finally over

Tony Blair will demand assurances today from Sinn Fein leaders that the republican movement has abandoned the armed struggle for ever.

With the province's power-sharing executive days from collapse, the Prime Minister will seek the pledge during emergency talks with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Downing Street.

Mr Blair met the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, last night to review the crisis sparked by allegations of an IRA spy ring operating within the Northern Ireland Office. But with both sides of the sectarian divide digging in, there was little prospect of a last-minute breakthrough.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that for the peace process to work he needed to know Sinn Fein's members were committed to "exclusively peaceful means". He said he believed the republican leadership was committed to a peaceful future, but warned they could not remain part of the democratic process while still pursuing a "path of violence".

"It is an obligation in particular for everyone to realise that there can only be one democratic path," Mr Blair said.

"That democratic path cannot divide into a path of democracy and a path of violence, so we are at the point of decision now."

Mr Blair's comments came after David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, said he would withdraw his ministers from the Executive by Tuesday if the Government did not start moves to expel Sinn Fein.

Suspension of the Executive while the parties hunt for a compromise now looks the most likely course of action, leaving the peace process facing its worst crisis since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. That would mean the resumption of direct rule from Whitehall, with Stormont's responsibilities passing to government ministers.

Mr Adams said there were no grounds for expelling his party and challenged Mr Blair to act as a guarantor for the Agreement. He added: "This British Secretary of State [John Reid] has taken unilateral action too many times. Too many times we have seen him standing the agreement on one side while he panders to, or makes concessions to the Unionists."

Mr Adams claimed that only loyalist paramilitaries posed a threat to peace and destroying Stormont's institutions would play into the hands of anti-Agreement Unionists.

Mark Durkan, leader of the nationalist SDLP, conceded that the Executive might have to be suspended. Speaking after talks with Mr Blair, he said: "If there is suspension, we want to make it very clear that the institutions of the Agreement will have been injured but they have not been crippled."

Mr Durkan said the Republicans had to tackle public worries caused by recent IRA activities. "The best way people could be reassured was if there was no more IRA for people to worry about," he said.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein MPs in the Irish Parliament announced they would hand a letter to the British embassy in Dublin today protesting over Friday's police raid on the party's offices in Belfast.