The Democratic Unionist Party has published the devolution policy document presented to Tony Blair at Downing Street talks last month.
It contains the party's proposals for resurrecting the Stormont Assembly but not the full power-sharing executive contained in the Belfast Agreement.
Issuing the 16-page document Facing Reality, the Rev Ian Paisley again ruled out taking up executive office alongside Sinn Féin. Instead, the party has suggested a range of options, all of them short of the model envisaged by the agreement.
They include a "shadow" assembly with low-level powers or an EU-style model that would entail British government ministers acting as a type of Brussels-style council of ministers who would appear before influential Assembly committees.
Dr Paisley said the choice facing politicians in the North was a simple take-it-or-leave-it affair.
"The [ British] government's way of the Belfast Agreement is the failed way that we will not be retracing. If it is devolution the parties want, it will be on this basis or else no devolution will occur," he said.
The choice was there, he said, and it was up to others "to face up to reality and to grasp the opportunity before them".
Sinn Féin and the SDLP denounced the proposals, saying they would not tolerate any dilution of the Belfast Agreement.
Sinn Féin's Pat Doherty called on the British and Irish governments to defend the democratically backed agreement.
Accusing the DUP of trying to hollow out the power-sharing core of the Stormont institutions and the agreement, he said: "The two governments have an obligation to press ahead with its full implementation in the time ahead. The DUP cannot be allowed to veto this process."
He criticised the DUP policy document as an attempt to subvert the political process and delay the process of change.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said his party would not accept the setting aside of the executive dimension of the agreement. "It is at the heart of the agreement, and the SDLP will never accept its dilution. Nor will we agree with DUP proposals to allow direct rulers a continuing role," he said.
Defending the cross-Border elements of the agreement, Mr Durkan said: "It, too, is a fundamental part of the agreement, and an integral part of what the SDLP has always stood for."
• Full executive devolution not possible at the moment; politicians could either "mark time" or agree interim measures leading to:
• Lifting suspension on the Assembly but not the executive which would sit in "shadow" form, or
• "Legislative devolution" involving an EU-style council of ministers.
• "Stepped" approach to full devolution with no progress to full devolution without community support.