The Alliance Party has expressed disappointment that the talks at Weston Park did not yield a breakthrough.
However, the party leader, Mr Sean Neeson, said he was optimistic that progress could still be made through the two governments' package as long as it was presented on a "take it or leave it" basis.
"It is clear that we cannot constantly repeat a process of periodic negotiation after negotiation," he said. "In this peace process there is a long history of packages being presented to the parties, only for conditional `yes, but . . .' answers to come back from various parties . . . The two Prime Ministers must make clear that this package is being presented on a `take it or leave it' basis. The time for decision-making by the parties will soon be upon us," he concluded.
For the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, Prof Monica McWilliams said it was time to move away from last-minute summits and crisis management to a process of conflict transformation. The Belfast Agreement still offered the best hope of that. While the Weston Park talks had been some of the most difficult to date, there had been a level of honesty about what was possible for the parties to achieve.
She said the process was at a "critical" stage and called on all parties to grasp the opportunity for peace. "I believe it is now a moral imperative beyond party politics to be seen to put everything that can bring destruction and death beyond use," she told the BBC's Sunday Sequence.