Loyalist paramilitaries are under no obligation to respond to anticipated decommissioning moves by the IRA, the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) said.
Mr Billy Hutchinson, the deputy leader of the PUP, claimed yesterday's statement by Sinn Féin was merely a device to fulfill their legal obligations under the Belfast Agreement.
"For loyalists to reciprocate in terms of giving up weapons they would be doing: one, satisfying Irish-America who they don't agree with in the first place, and two actually ensuring that two Sinn Féin ministers stay in government, which again they don't agree with," the MLA for North Belfast said on BBC Radio 4's World at One.
"There is a lot of irony in this and I think there is a lot of play coming from Unionists who are now saying that loyalists should be under pressure.
"It was not the loyalists who asked for the guns in the first place it was the Ulster Unionists and I have to say that what the Ulster Unionists have given up for these guns is quite more than I would have given," Mr Hutchison said.
It was the IRA and not loyalist paramilitaries, who should take "reciprocal action", Mr Hutchinson claimed.
"The UVF and Red Hand Commandos were the first people to appoint an interlocutor to the international body," he said.
"They were also the first to people to agree . . . how weapons would be destroyed whenever weapons were going to be given up, so we will have to wait and see what the IRA do next".