The political institutions established under the Belfast Agreement are going to collapse unless the unionists lift their threats and work with all other parties, Mr Gerry Adams has said.
The Sinn FΘin President made the claim in his leader's address to the party's ardfheis in the RDS in Dublin on Saturday.
Describing the peace process as being in a mess, Mr Adams warned that the institutions would collapse because unionists were refusing to administer them, except on their own terms. They had prevented the all-Ireland institutions, and ironically the British-Irish Council, from functioning; they had vetoed the work of the ministers for education and health and were now moving to exclude Sinn FΘin from the Executive.
"In my view, all of this has been greatly influenced by the manner in which the British government approaches the process. That approach has been characterised by making all other issues secondary to the issue of IRA arms," Mr Adams told delegates.
The issue of IRA weapons had been made a precondition for progress on all other issues, in breach of the Good Friday agreement.
"The whole truth is that resistance to change in the North of Ireland comes not only from those within unionism but from within the British system also," Mr Adams said.
This went back much further than the current crisis. In this phase, it went back to the private assurances in the letter that Tony Blair gave to Mr Trimble hours after they endorsed the agreement. It was Mr Blair's government that was responsible for permitting a virus to enter and to remain at the heart of the agreement.
"The fault line in the agreement and of every crisis in it can be traced to that point," he said.
"For my part, I believe that the issue of arms can be resolved. We in Sinn FΘin have done our best and enormous progress has been made in the past six years, particularly in relation to IRA arms," he said.
He did not believe that the issue of arms - all arms held by all armed groups, including those held by British forces - would be resolved on British government or unionist terms, or on the basis of threat, veto or ultimatum.
Some accused Sinn FΘin of being opposed to the decommissioning of arms. This was untrue.
Last month, in a historic breakthrough, the Independent International Commission on Decomissioning announced that it had agreed a scheme with the IRA to put arms completely and verifiably beyond use.
"And the IRA is presently engaged in ongoing discussions with the IICD," Mr Adams told delegates.
For the unionists to reject the IICD determination and for the British Government to suspend the institutions was hardly the stuff of peacemaking.
"The democratic rights and entitlements of nationalists and republicans cannot be conditional," he said.
In the agreement, these matters - policing, political institutions, demilitarisation, human rights, the justice system and the inequality agenda - were stand-alone issues. t. They could not be withheld or granted or subjected to a bartering process.
Mr Adams had begun his speech by referring to the attacks on the US, expressing his solidarity and sympathy with the people of the US and stating that he repudiated the atrocities.
He said that while nations had an individual right to defend themselves and their citizens, the party agreed with UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan that only the UN could give global legitimacy to the struggle to eliminate terrorism.
"Terrorism is ethically indefensible. Those responsible for the atrocities in the US must be brought to justice," Mr Adams said.
Progressive struggles throughout the world had been set back by the US attacks. There was no excuse, no justification for those type of actions. But neither should anyone who was truly concerned with world peace be deflected from that task or be carried away by the notion of a clash between civilisations.
"The real challenge is for dialogue, not retribution. That is the lesson of the peace process on this island. That is what Sinn FΘin is about. It is about standing up for your rights while recognising the rights of others. It is about dialogue. It is about being inclusive. It is about equality. It is about justice. It is about righting wrongs," Mr Adams said.
The ardfheis met at a deeply sombre time, he told delegates. Whether one stood in Ardoyne, or America, or Afghanistan, it was hard to avoid a foreboding about what lay ahead.
"For the true political activist, the only choice is struggle, not acquiescence. The only direction is forward," Mr Adams said.
"From within the broad republican constituency, we are working for the day when all the armed groups, including the IRA, cease to be. But we will not be part of any effort to criminalise or to deem as terrorists those men and women who fought when they considered they had no other choice and who had the integrity and courage and wisdom to support a peace process when they had that choice." Mr Adams said.
Referring to unionists, Mr Adams said he wanted to assure them that Sinn FΘin would have no truck with sectarianism.
"Our collective responsibility at this time is to settle our differences, and I appeal to the leaders of unionism to join with us in doing that so that all sections of our people can go forward on the basis of equality," he said.
While loyalist paramilitaries threw over 250 bombs and Catholic schoolchildren were blockaded on their way to and from school, there was an unrelenting agenda to pressurise, marginalise and blame Sinn FΘin for all of this.
Mr Adams paid tribute to John Hume but said that the SDLP move to endorse the revamped RUC did not augur well for the future. He ended his speech by paying tribute to the 1981 hunger strikers.
The full text of Mr Adams's speech is available at ireland.com