CHANGE there will be. Negotiations there will be. And Sinn Fein there will be," Mr Martin McGuinness told delegates at yesterday's ardfheis in Monaghan.
He called on a new British government to have the imagination and ambition to find a just and lasting resolution to the conflict and to clear away the preconditions and impediments to all-party negotiations.
Mr McGuinness said: "The refusal of the unionist parties to engage in dialogue, encouraged by the Major government, was fatal to the first peace process. But we now have a fresh opportunity to construct a new peace process.
"If the new British government uses this new opportunity to seriously engage in the task of conflict resolution with all the representatives of the Irish people, nationalist and unionist, they can help develop a new alliance of friendship and neighbourliness between the peoples of these islands " he said.
"The current British government was afraid to face us at the negotiating table because it recognised that we have a winning argument and its undemocratic occupation and domination of part of our country would be unsustainable in the face of that argument.
"The unionist parties were afraid to face us across the negotiating table because they also know the strength of our argument. But most of all they were afraid to go to the negotiating table because they know that to agree to negotiate is to admit the need for change and to admit the need for change is to end the status quo," he said.
"Well, I have news for the unionist leadership and I have news for the British government, of whatever colour it may be. Change there will be. Negotiations there will be. And Sinn Fein there will be," said Mr McGuinness.
"Sinn Fein, as has been stated publicly on many occasions by Gerry Adams, myself and the collective leadership of the party agree that these negotiations must take place in a peaceful atmosphere. There can be no preconditions, no vetoes either on the table, under the table or outside the door," concluded Mr McGuinness.
Earlier, opening the conference, Mr McGuinness told delegates it was crucial to increase Sinn Fein's mandate in the elections on both sides of the Border.
"The main priority must be the rebuilding of a new and credible process of peace negotiations," he said.
"We gather here at a time of great uncertainty, a time when we are facing into three elections, elections which present us with an opportunity to take our message and analysis of the political situation to the electorate. The elections also provide the electorate with the vehicle by which they can deliver a powerful message to both governments to initiate truly inclusive negotiations without delay.
"A strong mandate for Sinn Fein in the forthcoming elections will make it extremely difficult for either government to ignore our democratic right to represent our electorate in negotiations," he told delegates.
"These are crucial elections in which Sinn Fein can change the political landscape in this country forever. A strong mandate for Sinn Fein will reverberate throughout the corridors of power in Dublin, London and Washington as well as in European capitals. It will bring untold pressure to bear on the incoming British government and the Irish Government to engage in a credible process of inclusive peace negotiations," he said.
Mr McGuinness told the conference: "In these elections we will, without apology, put in the arena such issues as national self-determination, release of all political prisoners, nationalist rights, equality of treatment, an end to discrimination, and the removal of all impediments to progress in negotiations."
Mr McGuinness said he was confident of electing MPs in West Belfast, Mid-Ulster and West Tyrone. He also expressed confidence in Sinn Fein electing a TD in the Cavan/Monaghan constituency - the first since the hunger strikes in 1981.