The Democratic Unionist Party yesterday held two hours of "frank" talks in Stormont with the Catholic and Protestant clergymen who witnessed IRA decommissioning last week.
However, the DUP delegation, led by the party's leader Dr Ian Paisley, was tight-lipped after the encounter in Stormont with Fr Alec Reid and Rev Harold Good.
"We had a useful, frank and detailed discussion. I don't want to say anything more. We have genuine concerns about what happened," a DUP spokesman said last night.
The DUP was sharply criticised for apparently questioning the integrity of the two churchmen, following the announcement by Gen John de Chastelain that decommissioning had taken place.
Speaking on Tuesday, following a lengthy meeting with Gen de Chastelain, Dr Paisley declared: "The more the searchlight is put on this, the more we discover that there is a cover-up." The DUP leader had also said then that he had been "shocked" to discover the two clergymen had not been appointed by the Independent International Decommissioning Body, or the governments, but "by the IRA".
Despite these remarks, the DUP rejected subsequent criticism from the Ulster Unionist Party and other quarters that they had questioned the integrity of Fr Reid and Rev Good.
Led yesterday by Dr Paisley, the DUP delegation included the party's deputy leader, Peter Robinson, David Simpson and Ian Paisley jnr.
The two clergymen did not make any public comment afterwards.
Earlier the two had met an Ulster Unionist Party delegation that included the party's Assembly deputy leader, Danny Kennedy, and the party's sole MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon.
Criticising the DUP, Mr Kennedy said: "There was an unfortunate impression raised that the integrity and independence of the church witnesses was being called into question. I felt, and my party felt, that that was unfair and unwarranted and that any criticisms of the system in which they were forced to operate may have been right, but that the work carried out by the independent witnesses is the work that they were discharged to carry out."
The UUP had gained "an important insight" into the work of Fr Reid and Rev Good, Mr Kennedy said.
"We are satisfied to say that we believe that the independent witnesses have carried out their work independently and that they have also acted in an honourable and truthful manner at all times. What they have seen they have faithfully reported."
The UUP, he said, is satisfied "a substantial act" of decommissioning has taken place.
Meanwhile, the UUP has said it believed Fr Reid and Rev Good had been selected to act as decommissioning witnesses last November.
However, this was questioned last night by an Irish Government source who said Rev Good's name was not mentioned "until the last fortnight", though it had been "generally assumed" the other witness would be Fr Reid.
