Mr Martin McGuinness, re-elected as an MP in last Thursday’s Westminster election, said today that the Northern Ireland peace process was still viable despite gains in Britain's elections by hardline unionists.
The future of Northern Ireland's 1998 Belfast Agreement was thrown into doubt when the Democratic Unionist Party, which rejects the agreement, made electoral gains on Thursday at the expense of more moderate Protestant politicians.
The DUP, led by the Rev Ian Paisley, took votes from the mainstream Ulster Unionists led by Northern Ireland's First Minister David Trimble, a strong supporter of the Agreement.
Mr McGuinness said, however, that analysis of votes cast for Northern Ireland's 18 seats in the London parliament showed that support for the Belfast Agreement was still strong.
Votes for the pro-agreement parties - Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists and the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party - amounted to 78 per cent, six points up on the result of a referendum on the agreement in 1998, Mr McGuinness said.
"If you analyse the figures...there is probably now more support for the agreement from right across our community," Mr McGuinness told BBC television interviewer Sir David Frost.
"I think that the Good Friday agreement is still a viable project. It is a project all of us have a duty and responsibility to see implemented.
"There will be a huge responsibility to make it absolutely clear to those people who proclaim themselves to be rejectionist that they are not going to have their way."
Mr McGuinness also called on Mr Trimble not to carry out a threat to resign on July 1st if decommissioning has not begun.
"I certainly hope that doesn't happen. I think it would be a blow to the process. There is a duty on all of us to try and prevent that happening," said McGuinness.
Mr Trimble's position was weakened in Thursday's elections as his Ulster Unionist Party lost ground to the DUP and Sinn Fein, while he struggled to hold onto his own seat.
Mr Trimble's party lost three of its nine seats. Sinn Féin gained two to hold four. The DUP went from three to five seats and the SDLP remained on three.
The results set the scene for difficult negotiations involving the province's parties - possibly within two weeks - to get the Belfast Agreement back on track.