Seamus Mallon has said that the parties involved in last week's peace talks have the choice to either accept the two governments' proposals or wreck the North's power sharing institutions. The North's Deputy First Minister said the four key issues of decommissioning, policing, demilitarisation and the stability of the institutions had to be implemented together. He said that any party which rejected the Governments' proposals had to take responsibility for wrecking the institutions, putting pressure on the Ulster Unionists to take some strain on the policing issue.
However, the Ulster Unionist MP, Jeffrey Donaldson delivered an uncompromising message today, saying that there could be no trade-offs for disarmament and that the final deal must included actual decommissioning and not merely talk of sealing arms dumps.
The assembly will have to recalled from its summer recess with one week's notice, so the parties in effect have until August 6 to reject or accept the joint proposals.
