The Sinn Fein president has denied unionist claims that the IRA orchestrated recent violence and claimed the main loyalist paramilitary groups were behind the disturbances.
Mr Gerry Adams was speaking following clashes early yesterday between nationalists and loyalists in the Whitewell area of north Belfast. This followed recent fierce rioting along sectarian interfaces in Ardoyne and the Short Strand.
"I want to repudiate any incident in which Protestant homes or property have been attacked. Sectarianism is entirely alien to Irish republicanism," he said.
Mr Adams appealed to people on all sides to stop and blamed loyalists for starting Wednesday's violence. "There is no republican orchestration," he said. "The UVF are engaged, or elements of them, in east Belfast, and the UDA is clearly involved in what is going on in north Belfast."
On suggestions that the use of two coffee-jar bombs yesterday indicated planned republican involvement, he said: "There are other republican elements who are rejectionists despite their self-styled titles. They are not the IRA.
"If the IRA wanted to orchestrate this, wouldn't there be bedlam? Against the backdrop of what's been happening?"
However, the Democratic Unionist MP for North Belfast, Mr Nigel Dodds, insisted a link existed between the trouble and republicans. "It is time the government recognised that the cries of peace from Sinn Fein/IRA by day are different from their activities by night," he said.
Mr Dodds called on the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, to help stop the attacks. "Protestant communities in north Belfast feel isolated and alienated by the government, who are seen to negotiate the future of this province with Sinn Fein/IRA while their bully boys organise street violence to suit their own wider political agenda," he said.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein yesterday stressed that the positions taken by the two governments during the Weston Park talks "fell far short" of the Belfast Agreement, which their proposals had to mirror if they were to succeed.
Mr Adams outlined areas of the accord yet to be realised such as the publication of a bill of rights; an overhaul of the justice system; and the need for enhanced powers for the Human Rights and Equality commissions.
"Do I think that if the weapons were handed in all of these other issues would flow? No, they won't. This is a battle a day, and it's a battle a day to which this party is totally committed," he said.