SDLP, UUP reaction: Ulster Unionists and the SDLP have said yesterday's proposed deal meant the DUP had accepted the basics of the Belfast Agreement.
UUP leader Mr David Trimble said the publication of the governments' paper proved that "no significant alteration at all" had been made to the agreement. "What has happened is that the DUP appears to have completed its process of acceptance of the Belfast Agreement." He said that in such circumstances, republicans would be "extremely foolish" not to agree to the governments' proposals "and proceed to decommission and to decommission completely".
Mr Trimble said the end of the IRA was delivered because of the position adopted by the Ulster Unionists when he was First Minister.
"We got decommissioning, we got it started," he said. "We blew the whistle in October 2002 and you can see the results of that now in terms of what has happened since."
For the SDLP, the Newry-Armagh MP, Mr Séamus Mallon, said he was mystified why so much hard work on decommissioning had come to nothing. He said: "I cannot understand how two governments with all of their expertise, Sinn Féin with all of its expertise and the DUP with its new-found zeal for negotiations, actually spent three months negotiating without ever coming to a conclusion about what was for them, the DUP, a central point."
The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, also claimed the DUP now accepted the principles of the Belfast Agreement.