The Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, met for 75 minutes at Stormont yesterday, but the talks failed to resolve the decommissioning impasse.
Mr Trimble told reporters there was "a quite clear difference of interpretation on what is in the agreement". There was a failure on the part of Sinn Fein to realise that decommissioning was a "very clear obligation" under the terms of the pact.
"This obligation is explicitly linked in the agreement to the holding of office," he said. It was a situation where some people were failing to realise their obligations. "The problem arises because a small element within the republican movement can't face up to its responsibilities."
If decommissioning took place, that would enable progress to be made on other matters. "The people who are being intransigent are the people who are refusing to implement their obligations." Mr Trimble added: "A person cannot credibly say they are committed to exclusively peaceful means when they are maintaining a private army and a hoard of illegal weapons and refusing to address the issue."
In a separate press conference Mr Adams said: "It is my view that if there's the political will we can resolve these problems, and that's the spirit and the sense that I brought to this morning's meeting."
He recalled that after their first meeting he had told the media David Trimble was someone he had to do business with. "That remains both my sense of this and my intention."
He had urged Mr Trimble to use his authority as First Minister to implement the agreement. "The pace shouldn't be set by those who are against the agreement, who are against change," Mr Adams said.
Anyone anticipating a breakthrough at the meeting had a false expectation. There was a huge onus on the two governments, "the British government particularly", and Mr Trimble to move forward.
There were unionist and nationalist views of the world. "There is also a view which transcends both those sections, which is that the politicians have to make it work. There should be no preconditions, and we need to move it ahead."
Mr Adams believed this view was widely held among the broader unionist community, whatever about unionist political activists.