The British Government must understand the damage it has done to the Northern Ireland peace process with the recent cancellation of Assembly elections, it was told today.
In a fierce attack on British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair's decision not to go ahead with the Stormont elections on May 29th, Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness said the British government was fully to blame for the political vacuum in Northern Ireland.
And he also disclosed Sinn Féin was engaged in a "renewed negotiation" with the Irish and British Governments to restore devolution.
While insisting progress had been made in the peace process over the past decade, the Mid Ulster MP told the McGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, it was arguably facing its "deepest crisis yet".
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"The cancelling of elections undermines democracy and politics and damages the peace process which is premised on the possibility of making politics work.
"Perhaps the British government does not fully understand the significance of their actions but they are entirely responsible for the dangerous vacuum which currently exists and which opponents of the peace process on both sides will try to exploit."
Devolution in Northern Ireland has been suspended since last October after unionists threatened to walk out of the power sharing government following the discovery of an alleged IRA spy ring at Stormont.
Mr Blair cancelled the elections because the IRA failed to come up with a statement which clearly indicated it was abandoning paramilitarism forever.
While Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams publicly declared the IRA would not engage in any activities that would undermine the peace process, Mr Blair said he did not believe it was sufficient to persuade Ulster Unionists to go back into government with republicans.
With the UUP unwilling to serve in a power-sharing executive without a clearer declaration from the Provisionals, Mr Blair said the elections would have been meaningless and could not go ahead as planned on May 29th.
Mr McGuinness said today the cancellation of elections was especially damaging because they derived directly from the Belfast Agreement.
"The British Government has no mandate in Ireland," he declared.
"The British Government has no right to override the democratic process in Ireland."
Sinn Féin's chief negotiator added: "A definite date must now be set for the cancelled elections.
"The institutions agreed on Good Friday and endorsed by the people need to be put back in place urgently.
"Sinn Fein is now engaged in a renewed negotiation with the two governments in an attempt to achieve this but there can be no renegotiation of the Good Friday Agreement.
"The Agreement must be implemented in full. We must see an end to political and paramilitary policing.
"Our society must be demilitarised on all sides. There must be an end to discrimination, inequality and sectarianism.
"Human rights must become a reality for all our people.
"The British government has accepted in the recently published joint declaration (with the Irish Government) that it has failed to deliver on these obligations so there is a particular onus on that government to do so without further delay."
PA