"THE genie, in many ways, is back out of the bottle," said Mr Gerry Adams yesterday after the IRA's rocket attack on Belfast High Courts.
"We are looking, once again, at dangerous times," he added.
The Sinn Fein president said all political elements must now do their utmost to achieve a credible talks process, "and to get it anchored".
He said that a "long headed view" needed to be taken. "We have to see beyond the next incident or the last incident. There is going to be a peace settlement. There are different factors which prevent that happening at this time.
As Mr Adams spoke in west Belfast, intensified British army patrols were already evident on the streets of central Belfast and in nationalist areas.
Heavy Saracen personnel carriers backed up soldiers and police who mounted periodic random checks on motorists entering the city centre in the aftermath of the attack.
The drive by rocket attack, in the heart of the city and in broad daylight, was the clearest possible signal of the IRA's intentions to crank its armed campaign up with opportunistic attacks on security forces wherever possible - and however reckless the attacks may seem in terms of endangering many civilian lives.
Mr Adams, speaking to reporters in west Belfast at an interview opportunity that had been arranged earlier to deal with the electoral pact dispute between Sinn Fein and the SDLP, seemed to assert that such attacks were inevitable.
"There is a certain dynamic in a conflict situation," he said.
"It can go forward, in terms of moving towards a peace settlement, or it can go backwards, in terms of moving towards conflict.
"We were able to create a dynamic which moved it forward towards a peace settlement. That was ambushed by John Major and Patrick Mayhew. They destroyed that opportunity, and the vacuum is now being filled.
"The genie, in many ways, is back out of the bottle. I want to see that rectified. I think we will still be able, when all of the main, players focus their attention and their wills - we will still be able to bring about a negotiated settlement. In the meantime we are looking once again at dangerous times.
He said he restated his "absolute commitment to doing all in my power to work with others to create the conditions where all of this can be brought to a permanent end".
All of these attacks, like loyalist attacks on republicans, IRA attacks, RUC attacks on nationalist homes and property, were all "regrettable symptoms of a problem here which must be tackled with all speed."
The Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, said the IRA's intent seemed to be to try to blackmail its way into the talks process, or a way in for its political representatives, Sinn Fein.
But, he said, every attack of this kind only put further back and reinforced its own self imposed exclusion. However, Sir Patrick remarked: "If they want... from today, to say that's the end of it, and then demonstrate that they mean it well then, they're in business."
He termed the action a "criminal gangster attack" and said the IRA had once again shown it was perfectly prepared to fire some lethal explosive device in a busy part of the city with complete disregard for human life.
RUC Chief Insp Victor Hutchinson said the attack was launched callously in a very busy area, as all of the courts were in session.
Court reporter Mr Ivan McMichael was in the press office at the far end of the High Court when he heard the explosion at 12.07 p.m. He went immediately to the scene. "On my way out to the security post I had to step around a woman who was lying on the front steps being comforted by police.
"It was some relief to be told that she had not been injured but had collapsed in a state of shock when the explosion went off as she was leaving the building.
"I was able to get to within a few feet of the security post and could clearly see through the open door that the bomb proof glass had been shattered but not holed."