The Ulster Democratic Party, which represents the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters, has called for an immediate end to all sectarian attacks across the North.
Sinn Fein has welcomed the call but denied that the attacks were of a "tit-for-tat" nature. The party also urged the UFF to lift its threat to kill anybody attacking Protestant homes.
In his first public intervention since the attacks started several weeks ago, the UDP leader, Mr Gary McMichael, pledged that his party would do "all that it can to exert influence within the loyalist community to stop these attacks".
"I make a public appeal to all loyalists not to become involved in this form of sectarianism. Any person considering carrying out such attacks, I ask them to stop now," he added.
Mr McMichael, however, stressed that Sinn Fein also had a responsibility to halt the "spiral of tit-for-tat incidents".
He said the party was working to make the UFF lift its threat against Catholics. "We are opposed to such threats and we are doing all we can to address that situation."
Responding to Mr McMichael, a Sinn Fein MLA for north Belfast, Mr Gerry Kelly, said the "orchestrated" campaign against Catholics carried out by loyalists needed to be brought to a halt once and for all.
"I am glad to see that the leadership of the UDP have finally spoken on these attacks. They are, however, not `tit-for-tat' as claimed by the UDP but planned, orchestrated and then escalated by the UFF over a period of time since before Drumcree.
"There clearly is a strategy in place to attack Catholics and their property on an ever-increasing basis . . . What is required now is an immediate statement from the leadership of the UFF lifting its threat to kill Catholics in north and west Belfast and for them to end their latest wave of sectarian attacks."
Sectarian attacks continued in Belfast and elsewhere on Wednesday night.
Three houses in Barrack Street, off the Falls Road, had their windows broken and red, white and blue paint-bombs thrown at them. One of the houses belongs to a local SDLP councillor, Ms Margaret Walsh, who was at home with her husband, son and daughter at the time of the attack shortly before midnight.
Ms Walsh said she did not believe she was singled out because of her position as an SDLP councillor. Such random attacks had to stop and she would be meeting UDP representatives, including the deputy mayor of Belfast, Mr Frank McCoubrey, to urge them to step in and halt the attacks.
An SDLP MLA for west Belfast, Mr Alex Attwood, called on the nationalist community to show "strong resolve not to be provoked" by the attacks as this was just what loyalist extremists wanted.
A west Belfast Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Michael Browne, criticised the city's DUP Lord Mayor, Mr Sammy Wilson, for his silence in the face of a "sustained loyalist assault" on the Catholic community.
Meanwhile, a petrol-bomb attack on a Catholic primary school near Ballymena, Co Antrim, has been condemned by the SDLP Minister of Further Education, Mr Sean Farren.
A window was broken and a hall scorch-damaged in the attack on St Mary's primary school in Martinstown.