Sinn Fein's Northern chairman, Mr Gearoid O'Hara, said that while his party was prepared to discuss decommissioning in parallel with political talks, the IRA was unlikely to hand in any arms during negotiations. Mr O'Hara said a handover of weapons could not be expected until a lasting settlement was achieved. "The Mitchell Principles said that the parties should be prepared to consider and discuss the issue of parallel decommissioning. We are prepared to consider and discuss it," he said.
"The IRA are actually saying that there won't be any guns handed in until there is a lasting settlement. The UDA and the UVF are saying the same thing. I don't think anybody on this island believes that guns are going to be handed over before the resolution.
"What we are saying to the unionists is `catch yourselves on, let's find a formula of words here that gets everybody in and doesn't allow them to stomp out again if they don't get their way'."
Commenting on the withdrawal of the unionist parties from the Stormont talks, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said the onus for progress now rested with the two governments.
"What is important is that a meaningful and inclusive process of negotiations is created, that all obstacles, and specifically that of decommissioning, are removed and that this process moves quickly to substantive issues," he said.
"Unionists can have no reasonable objections to Sinn Fein's efforts to rebuild a peace process. Their hostility to such efforts by Sinn Fein and others exposes their opposition to an inclusive and credible peace process."
Meanwhile, in an article in yesterday's Irish News, Mr Adams indicated that his party would be prepared to accept a political agreement which fell short of a united Ireland. Observers noted that he stated that Sinn Fein would press for a "renegotiation of the union" and not a replacement of it.
Republicans wanted to reach "an accommodation" with unionists, but "marginalising and demonising and refusing to talk to others reinforces intolerance and prejudice and intransigence", he said.
Mr Adams said events on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown had badly damaged the British government in the eyes of nationalists. "The harsh reality is that nationalists living in the six counties are not equal citizens under British law or in the eyes of the institutions of this statelet," he said.
He claimed resistance to change dominated the mindset within the corridors of power at Stormont and Westminster. "It isn't just restricted to the ranks of the Orange Order and the RUC. This adherence to the status quo influences all aspects of British policy," he stated.
The Sinn Fein president said equality would have to be introduced in the employment, education and cultural arenas: "There is a responsibility on the British Prime Minister, who claims to have placed human rights at the top of his international agenda, to place it at the top of his Irish policy."
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, has requested a meeting with the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, to express "the very great concern within the unionist community about the plan to allow IRA/Sinn Fein into full-scale substantive talks without handing over a single weapon and within a brief period of another tactical ceasefire".
Meanwhile, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing, said that the murder of a Catholic teenager, Ms Bernadette Martin, in Co Armagh, and a loyalist gun attack in Ardoyne, signalled the beginning of a loyalist onslaught against the nationalist community.
An IRSP spokesman, Mr Fra Halligan, said nationalists should not remain calm. "The IRSP says `get angry, you have every right to'. Dignified peaceful protest and calm responses are taken by unionists and loyalist paramilitaries as a green light to break heads and murder people."