The Hillsborough declaration has the potential to resolve satisfactorily obstacles to the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement, according to the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble.
He said he particularly welcomed aspects of the joint declaration that reinforced the need for disarmament by paramilitary organisations before the setting-up of an executive.
"I believe that this declaration, if it is made, has the potential to resolve satisfactorily the problems that we have encountered with regard to proceeding to implement all of the agreement.
"I welcome particularly that the declaration reinforces and reiterates the obligation in the agreement for actual disarmament."
According to the UUP leader, the declaration document confirms his party's interpretation of the Belfast Agreement, that an arms handover must occur within the time-scale set out in the agreement.
"If there is that commitment made by the paramilitary parties to decommissioning and to an act of decommissioning within the period set out by the declaration, then I think we will then be able to operate the d'Hondt formula in order to nominate persons, who would become ministers, not immediately, but would become ministers on the devolution of power", said Mr Trimble.
"For the declaration to be made, for progress to occur and the executive to be formed as we wish, it is, of course, essential that those commitments are made by the paramilitary-related parties and the decommissioning is begun as envisaged in this declaration," he said. "This is a rather complex form of sequencing, choreography, taking place over a longer period than perhaps had been originally envisaged. But it does have the potential if the necessary commitments are made," he added.
"Yesterday morning I didn't think we would actually get as far as we have done. The Ulster Unionist Party will continue to do what it can to realise the potential of the agreement, to see that all of it is carried forward and implemented because we are now more than ever conscious of the potential of the agreement to transform society in Northern Ireland," he said.
Mr Trimble said the UUP intended to "consider the situation" before talks resume on April 13th.
Mr Roy Beggs jnr, who had threatened to leave the Ulster Unionist Assembly Party if Mr Trimble wavered on the IRA disarmament demands, said he still had to make up his mind on the declaration.
Mr Clifford Forsythe, the Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim, who has voiced support for anti-agreement group Union First, congratulated his party for maintaining the policy that an executive would not be formed before a handover of paramilitary arms.