The DUP is deliberately exaggerating its doubts about decommissioning in a destructive attempt to turn the clock back on the Belfast Agreement, writes Mark Durkan.
Monday was that most rare thing in the politics of the North, a day of optimism and hope. The SDLP warmly welcomes the announcement of IRA decommissioning. The gun - at last - is being taken out of Irish politics. This vindicates all of us who have always argued for a purely peaceful way forward.
Just last February the IRA warned the Irish people not to underestimate the seriousness of the situation. The Irish people didn't. They stood firm for an end to guns. Now their strong stand is being rewarded. Their stand against all criminality must also be.
Monday's events also demonstrate the utter futility of violence. That is something that so many victims of the Troubles know too well and something so many loyalists need to learn. The best thing that loyalists can do now to free their communities of poverty and fear is to give up drug-dealing, racketeering, intimidation and murder and destroy their guns.
As with so much in the North, the hope given by Monday is also mixed with frustration.
For years, the SDLP said to Sinn Féin that the Belfast Agreement required decommissioning. We argued that the failure to put weapons beyond use was feeding anti-agreement unionism and giving them just the excuse that they needed.
How much better a position we would all be in if Sinn Féin had listened to us back then. How much better a place the North would be today. But that is the past, and we have to look to the future. The real question is how we get to a better place now.
The answer is simple. It's got to be full speed ahead with the agreement.
In the past, just as the IRA held up decommissioning, the UUP held up the establishment of the executive. The DUP have seen this. They think that it's now their turn to hold up the agreement for a year or two. In fact, neither they nor Sinn Féin are in any rush to work the agreement's institutions. Both believe that they can engage in the politics of yet further protracted negotiation.
So the danger exists that - despite this week's great developments - the DUP will deliberately want more than the Provisional movement offers, and that the Provisional movement will deliberately fall short of what the DUP wants. The danger exists that gaps will be narrowed, but not closed, with each working to wring concessions out of the two governments, instead of working the agreement with all of us.
That's why the DUP are deliberately exaggerating their doubts about decommissioning. They think that they can force all sorts of gratuitous side deals from the governments. They have even drawn up a 50-page document setting out their various demands. It appears to be little more than a destructive attempt to turn the clock back on the agreement, on policing and on change.
It was wrong but probably inevitable that, in the absence of IRA decommissioning, the UUP would exercise a veto on setting up the executive. But now that decommissioning has happened, the governments must not make the mistake of allowing the DUP a veto. They must reject their attempts to undermine change, especially on policing. They should tell the DUP loud and clear where to go: back into the agreement's institutions.
If unionist politicians have legitimate problems that they want addressed, like deprivation, then the best way to deal with them is sitting around the executive with all the other parties. Likewise, the best way that Sinn Féin can deal with their concerns on policing is on the Policing Board, with everybody else.
I know that we can achieve this. Not so much because I have confidence in the actions of governments or in the motives of parties, but because I have confidence in the determination of people.
Overwhelmingly, people, nationalist and unionist, want peace and an end to paramilitaries. They want politicians working together in the North and on the island. This is what they voted for with the agreement and still expect their politicians to deliver. Yes, many - especially unionists - are disillusioned. But their disillusion is not in fact with the agreement but rather with the failure of parties and paramilitaries to honour it fully.
The challenge is to invigorate this popular determination and to harness it to keep those who would stand in the way of progress under positive pressure. That is as simple as following a few dos and don'ts.
Don't do any more half-baked deals behind closed doors that only reward the problem parties. Don't do any more side deals that take us away from the real deal, the Good Friday agreement.
Don't play fast and loose to suit the DUP and Sinn Féin, moving to satisfy one today and the other tomorrow.
Don't undermine the new policing institutions, the one piece of the agreement that has always worked well.
Don't give the dangerously destabilising impression that all the British government cares about is the IRA and not at all about the agreement and the rights and welfare of nationalists and unionists on the ground.
Do tell the DUP that their mandate is best reflected by being on the executive. Do tell Sinn Féin that their mandate is best reflected by being on the Policing Board. Just like every other party.
Do stand up for an inclusive democracy. Do stand strong for a lawful society. For sharing as equals in the North. For working as partners across the island.
Above all, do tell it like it is. If any party is falling short of the agreement, call it.
If the governments hold firm, the parties will come to them. Because the agreement is what the people of Ireland - nationalist and unionist - voted for. It is what they still want. Seven years on from its negotiation, it is what we must all now deliver.
Mark Durkan is leader of the SDLP