Progress is being made on the issue of decommissioning paramilitary weapons, according to the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble. In a speech to Belfast businessmen that ranged widely over the issues in Thursday's Assembly elections, he said the pressure on paramilitaries from parties like his own was having an effect.
"Listen to the LVF, who stated two weeks ago that it was prepared to co-operate in this matter. Listen to the self-styled commandant of the IRA in the Maze prison when he talks about voluntary decommissioning. Listen to John White of the UDP yesterday who said he would recommend to the UDA that they make a start."
But the UUP leader took a firm line in support of traditional Orange parades. "But if nationalists feel they have to protest, my appeal to them would be to do it in a peaceful and dignified way."
He said he was prepared to speak to any party that had "the good of Northern Ireland at heart". But he indicated strongly this would not include Sinn Fein until the threat of IRA violence was removed. "The movement from Tactical Use of Armed Struggle to the Threatened Use of Armed Struggle is no movement."
Looking to the future he said that Ulster unionism was ready for the challenge of taking a bold and imaginative step forward. "Others may fail to understand or lack the courage but if we fail to take this opportunity, our children will not be forgiving. To run away again, or to stay only to sabotage the hopes of society would be utterly irresponsible.
"I promise you today - we will reach for the prize on offer, and we have good men and women with us who will stay the course. On Thursday give us the tools and we will do the job."
Mr Trimble said his party intended to make the Assembly work. "It has the potential to transform Ulster politics."
The UUP leader's keynote address was sharply criticised by his rivals in the unionist camp. Mr Peter Robinson of the DUP described it as "the fumbling words of a party leader who has clearly lost it".
In posing as a man of vision, Mr Trimble had shown himself a leader without judgment, according to Mr Robinson, who accused him of being "naive and detached from logic" on the decommissioning issue.
Mr Trimble was "long on rhetoric and short on substance", the UK Unionist leader, Mr Robert McCartney claimed. "This speech could have been written by the Labour Party spin doctors and will prove as empty as Mr Blair's pledges."
Mr John Hume agreed with Mr Trimble that the Belfast Agreement represented a new beginning. "We want to leave the past behind us and have a new situation where both sections of our people, through their elected representatives, will be working together," the SDLP leader said.
The Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, said Mr Trimble needed to move "beyond the rhetoric" by talking to the residents of the Garvaghy Road, in his own constituency, about the proposed Drumcree Orange parade.