First Minister Peter Robinson has accused Martin McGuinness of being in denial on how to make progress on contentious parades, flags and the legacy of conflict amid tensions at the heart of Northern Ireland's government.
The Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister has urged all parties to implement proposals drawn up by former US diplomat Dr Richard Haass following months of negotiations.
Democratic Unionists have expressed reservations and their leader Mr Robinson claimed his Stormont power-sharing partner appeared to believe it was everyone else's duty to reach agreement on his terms.
"The unhelpful and irrational comments made by Martin McGuinness will do nothing to take the negotiations forward," he said. "He is in political denial and clearly has an exaggerated view of what his role is within the process."
Sinn Fein and the nationalist SDLP have endorsed the draft plan published after Stormont talks broke up without agreement on New Year's Eve. It includes new mechanisms for dealing with the past and parades, and greater provision for victims of the 30-year conflict.
Mr Robinson added: "If Sinn Fein or any other party does not want to be part of a process that seeks to resolve outstanding issues they can walk away, but that will display a lack of leadership on their part."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article