Bitter divisions emerged between unionists yesterday as the UUP edged towards joining the Stormont talks and the DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, made a stinging attack on them. He said future generations would curse party leaders for their folly in entering a process "designed to destroy them".
Mr Robinson, whose party has boycotted the process, said the UUP of Mr David Trimble had "ditched every principle they ever held" and had been "sucked into a process that, by its very nature, would damage the union". He said this was an error of incalculable proportions.
"The cruellest cut of all is that the leadership of the Official Unionist Party know that if they had joined the DUP and the UK Unionists in abandoning the talks, it would have resulted in the collapse of this pan-nationalist talks process and the way would then have been open to construct a new process which would have permitted a unionist outcome," he said.
The Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said he hoped a formula could be found to allow "the active participation" of unionist parties in the talks. "I believe that they have nothing to fear from the talks," he said.
Mr De Rossa also criticised Sinn Fein's vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, for describing the decommissioning issue as a red herring, saying Democratic Left believed it was "a crucial issue", which would have to be addressed in the course of the talks.
The Northern Ireland Women's Coalition called on all political parties to take their place at the talks table. A spokeswoman, Ms Monica McWilliams, said the people of Northern Ireland had consistently demonstrated support for a negotiated settlement in surveys and opinion polls.
"It's time this process reflected these results and became the people's process. There can be no reward for angling for position from outside. Everybody needs to be in the room and we look forward to the continued presence of the unionist family in substantive negotiations," she said.
Women's Coalition members earlier met Mrs Rita Restorick, the mother of Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, who was shot dead by the IRA in Co Armagh in February. She had travelled to Belfast to urge politicians to enter negotiations in a bid to stop further killings.
Ms McWilliams said afterwards that if Mrs Restorick's courage in the pursuit of peace were matched by all politicians, "we would be a long way down the road".
The Workers' Party president, Mr Tom French, called for compromise and political courage from all talks delegates and said politicians had to take the lead and show that they were prepared to compromise for the common good.
"There are always excuses aplenty by politicians and political parties for not taking risks politically, but not one of them can stand up as sufficient reason for continuing to abandon their democratic responsibility to all the citizens of this society," he said.
The Green Party welcomed the opening of talks and called on all parties "to make the necessary leap of faith and to take the necessary risks that will offer peace a real chance". Mr Trevor Sargent TD said he believed "the talks' ground rules condition of `sufficient consensus' went far beyond the models of majoritarianism currently on offer".
He said this sufficient consensus condition would mean that the greater number of those represented by each delegation could accept the outcome, "and not simply a weighted majority of delegations".