MR Gerry Adams revealed last night that he had written to the "British Prime Minister urging a start to all party negotiations and underlining Sinn Fein's commitment to rebuilding the peace process. He is also willing to try to tell Dublin how the IRA cessation might be put together again.
But Mr Adams warned the Government against accepting the unionist election proposal. He also claimed the British government intended to try to exclude Sinn Fein both from all party talks and the proposed election process.
In a keynote speech in Belfast last night, the Sinn Fein president said: "While I am prepared to speak to the IRA I will not speak for them." He also warned that any attempt to exclude his party from any part of the process would be "a recipe for disaster".
Mr Adams said: "In the present, already dangerous and difficult climate, any willingness to accept the unionist election proposal would not augur well for the period ahead."
What was required was a determination to rebuild the peace process rather than concessions to the British and unionist position. He questioned the British government's undertaking that an election would lead directly into all party talks, saying it had reneged on previous such commitments.
Mr Adams made no reference to the bomb which was defused in London yesterday.
He said remarks yesterday by the Northern Political Development Minister, Mr Michael Ancram, indicated that the British government intended to try to exclude Sinn Fein from talks.
"Indeed, it is clear that the British want Sinn Fein to be excluded from their proposed election process also," he said. "Such barefaced disenfranchising of our electorate, of whole nationalist communities, would be a recipe for disaster. The alienation and disaffection with electoralism which would result is unthinkable."
Mr Adams accused the Taoiseach of seeking to hold him and Sinn Fein accountable for last Friday night's IRA explosion. He added: "Further more, he has excluded me, our party and its' electorate from normal political contact on that basis.
"He says that he will talk to me as soon as I go to the IRA and succeed in getting them to say, that they will stop killing people. He has not told me how I should proceed to do this or what will happen if I fail. Neither has he shown any understanding of the difficulties which British bad faith has created for all of us."
Mr Adams asserted that he had honoured all the commitments he had made with the Government and with Mr John Hume and Mr Albert Reynolds. But he had constantly warned the Government of the fragility of the process.
He (Mr Adams) accepted fully his responsibility to try to avert and prevent such incidents as the east London bombing. But making peace must be a collective effort.
It had been put to him that Dublin was interested in hearing from Sinn Fein how the IRA cessation could be put together again. "This is a legitimate question which I will do my best to respond to, but it is one which can only be answered authoritatively by the IRA itself," he said.
"Getting the IRA to recommence a cessation is possible only, in my opinion, in the context of rebuilding the wider peace process. Sinn Fein will therefore be anxious to hear the Irish Government's proposals for getting this back on track."
He stressed the need for urgency and said the commencement of negotiations provided the way forward. "Any new process must contain copper fastened and unambiguous public assurances that all party talks will be initiated by both governments at the earliest possible date."
Mr Adams claimed Sinn Fein had closed no doors - "Only today I sent a letter to John Major underlining our commitment to rebuilding the peace process."