Republicans must directly address their responsibility to achieve IRA decommissioning instead of always changing the subject to policing, a leading figure in the nationalist SDLP said today.
SDLP chairman Alex Attwood urged Sinn Féin and the IRA to face up to their responsibility on weapons as part of a collective move to resolve the problems in the Northern Ireland peace process.
With the process deadlocked on IRA decommissioning, nationalist attitudes to police reforms, British demilitarisation and unionist disruption of the political institutions, Mr Attwood called for a return to the spirit which led to the Belfast Agreement.
"It is always very interesting that when Sinn Féin are challenged about the issue of weapons, they immediately change the issue to one of policing," the West Belfast MLA said.
"It is time for republicans, like all of us, to face up to our responsibilities. It is time for republicans collectively to face up to their responsibility with respect to the disposal of weapons."
With the SDLP still refusing to endorse police reforms in the province, Mr Attwood denied his party had got itself caught on a hook on the policing issue.
The SDLP's call for round table talks involving the pro-Belfast Agreement parties was, he said, an attempt to "renew the sense of collective effort and energy that brought about the Good Friday Agreement".
Mr Attwood hoped those talks would take place early next week and insisted they would challenge each party including his own to finally resolve the policing question, would challenge republicans on disarmament, unionists on the working of the political institutions and the British Government on demilitarisation.
"(It is time) for people to make up their minds definitively and conclusively about fulfilling their responsibilities further to the Good Friday Agreement," Mr Attwood told BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics programme.
"That's what we need to do and I think that is particular to republicans because my sense and understanding of republicans is that if you give republicans the opportunity to debate, discuss and not decide, then they will take all the time in the world.
"But if you give republicans a situation where they have to decide and determine conclusively what they are going to do, then they are more inclined to do it. I think that is what we need to do in the coming days."
PA