The SDLP has welcomed the governments' joint proposals on implementing the Belfast Agreement but stopped short of fully accepting them.
Mr John Hume, the party's leader, said he thought they provided the means to help the process but called for more information on police reform and did not commit his party to endorsing the new police service.
Mr Hume said there had been "quite substantial progress" on policing but there were "a few other matters to be dealt with", such as the lateral entry of gardai into the police service; the full- and part-time reserve; plastic bullets; and the oversight commissioner.
Mr Seamus Mallon, the party's deputy leader, called for publication of the implementation plan for police reform and said his party could not make a judgment on it until then, and until the Northern Secretary formally called for nominations to the policing board.
Mr Mallon hoped an overarching agreement could be reached in time to recall the Assembly and elect a First and Deputy First Minister.
He said even the option of a one-day suspension, which would leave an additional six weeks in which to hold an election, would be a mistake. "What happens within that six weeks? Is time what is needed? I don't believe it is," he said. If the IRA and other parties were serious, he said, "then why extend this?"
Mr Hume said Monday's statement by the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning was welcome and he was glad "it appears as if (putting weapons beyond use) is going to happen."
Asked why unionists should be expected to proceed on the word of the IRA only, Mr Hume said the SDLP had "every confidence in the international commission and it is their response we will be guided by".
Speaking later on the BBC, the SDLP's Minister of Education, Dr Sean Farren, indicated that the SDLP was on the brink of giving its seal of approval to the new policing arrangements.
"We are fully prepared to take that step and we are all but there, in our view," he said. "We have had protracted negotiations, as everybody knows. We are coming very close to the final point with respect to those negotiations."
Dr Farren said if the implementation plan was published "and in the context of assurances that all other aspects of the Good Friday agreement are being progressed, I think you will find the SDLP in a position to respond very positively. We are only too anxious to do so."
The party's response also called for the full implementation plan for a reform of the criminal justice system to be published along with draft legislation and said a draft all-party statement guaranteeing the stability of the institutions was not sufficiently comprehensive.
The Alliance Party has said it is accepting "with reservations" the proposals by the British and Irish governments to break the deadlock in the peace process.
The Alliance leader, Mr Sean Neeson, said it was "morally inappropriate and undeserved" to grant an amnesty for paramilitary offences committed before April 1998 when the Belfast Agreement was signed.
"Although Alliance has serious concerns about some aspects of the governments' paper, we view it as an overall package. We are, therefore, prepared to accept it on the basis that all aspects are interdependent, including progress on decommissioning.
"In this package, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. If decommissioning does not happen, then no other parts of the package should proceed as currently formulated. We believe the package offers a way forward out of the current crisis."
Mr Neeson said the proposals on policing were "reasonable" and the SDLP should "come off the fence", support the new arrangements and encourage nationalists to join the new police force. "Likewise, unionists should be conscious of the need to provide stability of the institutions," he said.