Senior Ulster Unionist negotiator Sir Reg Empey has said Senator Mitchell's report and the Belfast Agreement are the only way forward for Northern Ireland. The pro-agreement parties yesterday all paid tribute to Senator Mitchell as his review ended.
Sir Reg praised his "tremendous efforts" to advance the peace process.
It was important the true significance of the recent statements was taken together by reading them all and cross-referencing one to the other. He said the current deal was the only option. "There is no other way forward and the real winners will be the people."
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, praised Senator Mitchell's "patience, skill and determination". He said it was now up to the politicians to show "that politics is the alternative to conflict, that politics works and can bring about change".
SDLP Assembly member Mr Eddie McGrady MP said Senator Mitchell's report, combined with the other statements made this week, "provides us with a premise for progress".
His party looked forward to both governments bringing forward their formal response to Senator Mitchell's review report and to them setting out a timetable for the establishment of the political institutions.
The SDLP would work with the parties to make a success of the institutions and to support the decommissioning body.
Ms Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition said: "It is time for us, the parties, to interrupt that culture of failure that Northern Ireland became so accustomed to. It's going to be a difficult time for us in the next week, it is probably going to be quite a dangerous time.
"It is going to be full of tension and fear but we have challenged those fears in the last few weeks."
Ms Jane Morrice of the Coalition added: "We have been talking a lot over the past weeks about the importance of the small incremental steps that were needed.
"The reality is that the steps that have been taken over the past days are gigantic in proportion."
Alliance leader Mr Sean Neeson said: "We are almost there and the pro-agreement parties must now collectively work to ensure that the will of the people of Northern Ireland is carried out through the full implementation of the agreement.
"We are literally within days from the start of the new millennium and the opportunity is now here to end the conflict in Ireland."
Progressive Unionist Party chief spokesman Mr David Ervine said: "In a few days the people of Northern Ireland will have a new government. That government will have the opportunity to serve the people." Trust would then be built and the healing process begun, he added. Mr Ervine said decommissioning rested on two pillars: the political demand and the practical reality.
The leader of the Ulster Democratic Party, Mr Gary McMichael, criticised anti-agreement unionists. "Those of you who have argued most consistently in favour of disarmament have by your very words and actions, some would say deliberately, made that task infinitely more difficult," he said.
"If you had spent as much energy making a positive contribution towards finding peace as you have trying to destroy this process, then we might have completed the journey long ago."