Sinn Féin today said Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble’s stance over decommissioning was an attempt to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement on unionist terms.
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Sinn Féin chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin said Mr Trimble wants to return to the days of unionist supremacy, of exclusion and inequality which was the "road to failure".
"Mr Trimble should instead rejoin the political process and work with the rest of the pro-Agreement parties to save the institutions instead of trying to block the process of change," he said.
The Ulster Unionist leader announced on Monday he was withdrawing his ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive over the arms decommissioning issue.
Earlier today Mr Trimble challenged the IRA to decommission its weapons.
In his address to the Tory party conference in Blackpool, He claimed his party was "bringing matters to a head" in order to force Sinn Féin and the IRA into action on weapons.
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He welcomed the British government’s "clear cut" response to the terrorist bombings in the US but contrasted this with its "uncertainty and reluctance to grasp the nettle" in Northern Ireland.
Mr Trimble also called on Labour to treat the people of Northern Ireland as "fully part of the UK" with wider powers for the Assembly.
"We are not doing this cynically to exploit the mood after September 11th," he told the conference.
"We have been very patient. We have waited a long time - three-and-a-half years since the agreement, 17 months since the IRA itself promised to put their weapons beyond use.
"If they are ever going to do it, it must be now. If they do, fine. Then the new institutions will bed down. If they do not, it will be clear that we must change the institutions so they can survive Sinn Féin’s failure.
PA