MR Martin McGuinness said yesterday that in its submission to the Mitchell body on arms decommissioning. Sinn Fein had spoken authoratively on the issue of all weapons in Irish society but had not spoken on behalf of the IRA.
In a series of interviews and briefings after the publication of Sinn Fein's document, ardchomhairle member Mr McGuinness said the party was now engaged in an attempt to salvage or resurrect a process that bad been brought last November "to the point of disaster".
He agreed he could not now repeat the statement he had made soon after the IRA cessation, that the ceasefire would hold in all circumstances. At that time he had believed that the IRA decision would lead all of the parties to the negotiating table.
Elaborating on the suggestions in the document which his party submitted to the International Body on Decommissioning in December, Mr McGuinness said it believed the sensible way would be for all of the armed bodies to agree the disposal of their own weapons.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, and Mr McGuinness had told British ministers in a series of meetings that, given goodwill and the appropriate political scenario, the modalities and methodology of decommissioning could be easily and rapidly resolved.
On the suggestion in the Sinn Fein document that an independent third party might be able to ensure confidence in a self disarmament process, he said: "At this stage we have not projected any particular body. What we have said is that an independent third party might have a role to play. I think that I of this has to be a matter for some private discussions between all of the parties involved in this conflict."
Mr McGuinness asserted that Sinn Fein had established its commitment to peaceful means - "we are committed exclusively to peaceful means", he said.
He believed many people had come to accept that the Sinn Fein leadership was serious and genuine in its commitment to move the process on through political negotiations.
The British government and the unionists were the only people refusing to countenance that reality.
He suggested the process had "fallen victim to the power struggle in Westminster".
Mr McGuinness refused to accept assertions by other politicians that the recent series of killings in the North was tying the hands of the International Body on Decommissioning.
He repeated that there was no evidence that the IRA was involved in these killings, "and in any case Sinn Fein has made it clear that it does not advocate, condone or approve of either punishment, beatings or punishment killings
However, he said, there should be a recognition that there was a serious problem of drug trafficking, particularly in nationalist areas, and that issue was related to the unacceptability of the RUC in those communities.
There was great anger and bitterness that drug trafficking had free rein. "These are all matters which are going to have to be discussed in the context of political negotiations," he said.
Mr McGuinness also asserted that the recent incidents had to be looked at "in context".
The reality was that in other peace processes throughout the world, in South Africa and the Middle East for example, hundreds of lives had been lost every week even during political peace negotiations.
"We have had nothing near that problem in Ireland in the course of the last 16 months," he said.
Asked in an RTE interview about the allegations by Mr Ken Maginnis of the UUP that he had "stepped down from the Army Council of the IRA", Mr McGuinness said: "I have never been a member of the IRA Army Council, so how could I have stepped down?"
Mr Adams did not attend yesterday's launch of the document at Sinn Fein headquarters in west Belfast.
In a foreword to the document, Mr Adams wrote that his party had also made an oral submission to Senator Mitchell's international body.
This had included a formal request to the body to ask the British government for the Stalker. Sampson, Stevens reports "and all other reports which the British government has suppressed and which have accumulated over the years on issues like shoot to kill, collusion, Brian Nelson and torture in interrogation centres".