Sinn Féin has been delivering a mixed reaction to the DUP proposals for devolution that could include the party in a Stormont administration irrespective of whether the IRA decommissioned and ended activity.
On Friday, after the DUP's Devolution Now document was unveiled, Sinn Féin MLA Mr Conor Murphy dismissed the paper as an attempt to exclude nationalists from government in Northern Ireland.
On Saturday, however, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator Mr Martin McGuinness moderated that position by describing the DUP proposals as "a shift by that party from the never-never land politics that they have inhabited for decades".
Devolution Now offered three possible models for restoring devolution.
The first would involve a full Northern executive in which the DUP would share power with Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP if the IRA ceased paramilitary activity and decommissioned.
The second offered a voluntary coalition operating a Northern executive that would exclude Sinn Féin should the IRA fail to dispose of arms and end activity.
The third model proposed a power-sharing, local government-type "corporate Assembly," where executive power would reside in the full 108-member Assembly and where the parties, including Sinn Féin, would have power and responsibility.
On Saturday, Mr McGuinness rejected the corporate Assembly and the voluntary coalition models but made no reference to the Northern executive model that would require the IRA to wind up as a paramilitary force.
More positively, however, he indicated that he saw some merit or at least some negotiating potential in the document when he said that Devolution Now was a "recognition by the DUP that power-sharing government is the way forward".
But yesterday, as the second week of the review of the Belfast Agreement got under way at Stormont, Mr McGuinness appeared to harden his position.
After meeting the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, to discuss issues internal to Northern Ireland, Mr McGuinness said the DUP in its document was explicitly demanding a new agreement.
"These proposals are clearly about a return to unionist majority rule. This is not acceptable. Sinn Féin will not allow a return to the misrule and abuse of power that was the hallmark of unionist rule in the past," he said.
Devolution Now makes no reference to North-South relations and other elements of the agreement such as policing, justice and human rights. The DUP said it would reveal its proposals as the review unfolds.
Mr McGuinness warned yesterday that "there won't be an Assembly unless the all-Ireland agenda is fully functioning".
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, and Mr Murphy will meet the parties today, including the DUP, to discuss the North-South and British-Irish elements of the agreement.
Both Mr Cowen and Mr Murphy are likely to raise with the DUP team today whether the party would in future operate the North-South dimension of the agreement.
One senior DUP source last night indicated that the party would work this feature of the agreement, as long as any relationship with the Republic was accountable to the Assembly, as is already in the agreement.
"There would be little point in our putting forward proposals on North-South matters that would be dismissed as unworkable," the source said.
Meanwhile, Sir Reg Empey of the UUP said the corporate Assembly proposal allowed the IRA "off the hook".
"It is a self-serving attempt to appear to be holding to previous commitments to keep Sinn Féin out of government while the DUP is actually embedding Sinn Féin in government in perpetuity without any decommissioning or disbandment by the IRA," he said.
