Loyalist paramilitaries have switched tactics from trying to goad the IRA back into conflict in north Belfast to exploiting sectarian tension in other parts of the city, Sinn Féin's Mr Gerry Adams claimed tonight.
In a hard-hitting statement, the West Belfast MP, who along with Mr Martin McGuinness will raise recent street clashes in east Belfast with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during talks in Downing Street next Monday, also claimed the failure of unionist leaders to enthusiastically sell the Belfast Agreement to their community was being exploited.
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As helicopters hovered over east Belfast for the eighth night running, Mr Adams claimed: "In my view the totally unacceptable plight of people in the interface areas is a contrived one.
"It arises from the crisis within unionism, the inadequate leadership being given to unionist people and the fear that the Good Friday Agreement is not in the interests of unionism.
"It is this fear which is being exploited. The victims are the nationalist people in Short Strand and their unionist neighbours.
"For the last 18 months there was intense effort by anti-Agreement paramilitaries in north Belfast to goad the IRA back into conflict.
"This effort has now been switched to other interface areas. This must fail also. It is my view that there is a degree of manipulation of some of the loyalists involved."
East Belfast has witnessed some of its worst violence for 30 years with several people, mostly civilians, being injured in a spate of shooting incidents over the past week.
Republicans have blamed the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force of sparking the trouble four weeks ago in an attack on the nationalist Short Strand.
Loyalists have accused the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein of stirring up tensions.
Mr Adams said no one should underestimate "the current threats to the peace process".
However the Sinn Féin leader insisted republicans were not to blame.
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Earlier, a leading loyalist member of the Stormont Assembly dismissed suggestions that nationalists in the Short Strand were living under siege from his community.
Mr David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party which is linked to the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, insisted: "That is just not true."
"It is a community reaction, not a paramilitary one," the East Belfast MLA claimed.
"The loyalist community here is seeing itself being accused of all these things in the media and saying well if that was happening, they would have seen it a lot sooner.
"I am hoping to get all this stopped but we are in a terrible situation and playing PR games is not going to help us," he added.