Mr Martin McGuinness has publicly confirmed he was the second-in-command of the IRA Derry brigade on Bloody Sunday.
Answering "yes" when directly asked if his draft statement to the Saville inquiry confirmed his role, he added his statement would definitively state the IRA did not engage in any way with the British army on Bloody Sunday.
"In fact, I also tell them that there were no IRA units on the march, in the Rossville street area; that there were no IRA weapons in that area and that no IRA shots were fired at the British army," said the North's Minister for Education.
"In the draft statement I have given a very full, frank and honest account of what I was doing on Bloody Sunday."
Speaking at Sinn Fein headquarters yesterday, he stressed he would also "rubbish" claims that IRA men had been shot dead on January 30th, 1972, and their bodies buried secretly across the Border. Mr McGuinness said he expected to meet tribunal lawyers before a final statement was drafted, on which his testimony would be based.
However, he criticised the inquiry, claiming it had lost focus and had been allowed to descend into "the Martin McGuinness show", with many civilian witnesses asked what they believed he had been doing on the day British paratroopers opened fire on civil rights marchers.
Over the course of the inquiry his name had been used against the families, against the injured and against the people of Derry and he was now standing with the people of Derry, he added.
Mr McGuinness said the inquiry showed the need for a "truth tribunal", since the British government, British army, British intelligence, SAS, RUC and prominent unionists also had questions to answer about their actions over the Troubles.
Ulster Unionist MP Mr Cecil Walker yesterday called on the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, to "come clean" about his past activities within the republican movement in light of Mr McGuinness's statement.
"If we are going to have true reconciliation and greater cross-community support for the power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland, the unionist community must be able to feel that republicans in particular recognise the hurt and terrible suffering they have caused," he said.
Mr Walker said republicans who wanted to attack the record of the RUC and the British army must not be allowed to hide their own past activities.
Meanwhile, the UUP Westminster candidate for Strangford, Mr David McNarry, last night warned republicans time was running out for IRA arms decommissioning, due to be completed by June. "Gen de Chastelain is on record as saying he needs eight weeks in which to complete the decommissioning process. Time is clearly running out." He said the UUP was "determined to hold the republican movement to account" on on the weapons issue.