The Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams today denounced as unacceptable the British government's focus on the IRA ceasefire when loyalists have embarked on a "killing spree".
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Mr Adams, commenting ahead of Mr Tony Blair's statement on the state of the IRA ceasefire, accused him of pandering to unionists.
"The reality is that Catholics are being killed in Belfast. There is a planned, organised campaign by loyalists against Catholics.
"The unionists' response to this is to seek the exclusion of Sinn Féin from our rightful place on the executive and tomorrow the British Prime Minister is making remarks aimed at republicans at the behest of the Ulster Unionist Party and the securocrats within their own system.
"It is disgraceful, it is totally unacceptable".
Mr Adams said: "For the life of me I don't accept for one moment that the police service and British intelligence agencies didn't have advanced notice that the Ulster Defence Association was about to go on a killing spree."
Earlier Mr Adams held talks with Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid to discuss the deteriorating political and security situation in the North after the killing of 19-year-old Catholic father-of-one Mr Gerard Lawlor by loyalists in north Belfast.
Mr Adams rounded on First Minister Mr David Trimble accusing him of failing to defend the Belfast agreement.
"What is required is confidence building measures by pro-Agreement parties, by the Executive, led by the First Minister, which makes it clear that sectarianism is wrong and which upholds the primacy of the political institutions as the place to sort out these problems," he said.
He warned that republican confidence in the agreement was waning because of the focus on the IRA and the loyalist campaign of violence.
"Tomorrow's events at Westminster, while totally unacceptable, are a surreal side-show because those living in the interface areas will find it crazy that the Prime Minister is zeroing in on republicans when they are victims of a loyalist campaign."
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, Mr Mark Durkan, later warned the British government not to create benchmarks which other parties could use for different purposes in the future, when it makes its statement tomorrow.
"Some people in this process have a tactic which seems to revolve around starring in their own stand-off and then other people manage to star in that stand off as well, and that is some of what we are seeing in the rhetoric and the hype of the last few days," he said.
"Will the Ulster Unionists use this tactic in the future? They might well do and that is one of the reasons why I think the governments have to be careful about the sort of terms they use tomorrow in case they use terms that are then turned into benchmarks by somebody else for other purposes in the future."
"I do not believe that Sinn Fáin actually believe there is going to be any [move to exclude them] despite the fact that some of their statements are raising fears in that particular direction. And nor should there be any moves to exclusion tomorrow," the SDLP leader added.
PA