The Ulster Unionist Party leader Mr David Trimble's initial reaction to the British-Irish blueprint was critical and chilly but he nonetheless promised to study its proposals in detail.
He expressed deep unease that the wording of the document failed to contain a verbal commitment that the IRA was definitely disarm. What was lacking was certainty, he said.
"I think the paper is fundamentally flawed because it equates democracy with terrorism, and treats them as if they were the same," added Mr Trimble.
Republicans in their paper had not signed up to disarmament. They used words such as "can" and "could" when instead they should be using words such as "must" and "will" disarm. The paper offered promises but no certainty.
"I have several doubts about these proposals. We are not opposed to partnership. We're more than ready to work in partnership with Catholics, nationalists and republicans. We are ready to work with Sinn Fein if they commit themselves to peace and democracy - and they know it," said Mr Trimble.
Addressing Mr Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, he said: "If there is any threat to this process, at the moment, it is because of your delay over the course of the last 14 months" in not signing up to a definitive pledge on disarmament.
But republicans could make progress and develop trust over the next 14 days, he added. You can, if you move in the course of those days, build confidence in your intentions, build confidence in your conversion from terrorism to democracy and I hope you do," he said.
Mr Trimble said he and his party needed more detail before it could decide one way or the other. In particular he wanted more information on the failsafes in the document, he said.
"We need to see the detail, we need to see the legislation, we need to study it," added Mr Trimble.
The Democratic Unionist Party has said that the five days' negotiations at Stormont demonstrate the flawed nature of the Belfast Agreement.
The DUP position against the agreement had been vindicated, a statement said last night.
According to the party, the result of the recent European election which saw the DUP leader, Dr Ian Paisley, top the poll, had prevented Mr Trimble, from accepting the proposal.
"If Mr Trimble had settled the matters he now seeks to negotiate, before he signed up to the Belfast Agreement, almost 300 terrorists would not have been freed, the RUC would not have been under the axe at the hands of the Patten Commission, the 1920 Act would not have been repealed and all-Ireland bodies would not have been constructed."
The statement continued:"Mr Trimble accepted similar proposals at Hillsborough and Downing Street. But this time, after the European election, there were 192,762 reasons why he could not. In our meeting we faced the prime minister with his broken referendum pledges on decommissioning. If Tony Blair had been sincere about those pledges he would have been here to sign the exclusion order on Sinn Fein/ IRA, rather than spend four days trying desperately to get them into government."