The Ulster Unionist Party's security spokesman, Mr Ken Maginnis, has called for "clarity and certainty" as his party is struggling to decide whether it will accept the deal proposed by republicans when the parties return to Stormont today.
Speaking on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme yesterday, Mr Maginnis said his party could not afford to gamble with the future.
He added: "If we have clarity and certainty that the state of affairs in Northern Ireland is going to be as we require it - permanent peace, no illegal guns and weapons - then we can deal with a week, we can deal with a fortnight [of waiting for a gesture on decommissioning by the IRA].
"That's not the first consideration . . . The first consideration is the medium- and long-term good of this society, and we can't gamble with it."
Mr Maginnis denied Mr David Trimble was prepared to risk a split in the party and accept the deal regardless of grassroots opinion.
Asked whether eight weeks was an acceptable time-frame for a start to decommissioning, the UUP security spokesman said: "I think if people were assured that the war was at an end, that illegal weapons were to be decommissioned, then, of course, we would be on the way forward."
Mr Maginnis said he wanted both governments and President Clinton to "unequivocally underwrite what we have been promised. To underwrite it they must understand it as clearly as I understand it. Is the war over? Are we going to find decommissioning as written in the agreement? Those are the questions that, if answered, will ensure we will move the process forward." On the same programme, the Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, said he hoped the two parties could cross the Rubicon together. He would not be drawn on the details of the proposed deal.
"We cannot discuss the details of it on the air. Each party is now discussing the matter with their officer boards and with their structures. Hopefully, tomorrow we will see, I believe, both sides have crossed the Rubicon," he added.