Republicans and unionists have the right to pursue their respective political aims in an all-Ireland context, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said last night.
Speaking at the Calgach Centre in Derry, Mr Adams said his party's repudiation of the "British government's interference in Ireland" should not be seen by unionists as a repudiation of their political objectives by Sinn Fein.
"We have mapped out a course for the future and we are taking the lead in charting that course towards a united Ireland", he said.
Mr Adams was speaking at the inaugural McCool Coyle Carlin lecture in memory of three IRA men who were killed, along with two girls, in a premature IRA bomb explosion in Derry's Creggan estate in 1970.
"Because Sinn Fein repudiates the British government's interference in Ireland, it has been said by some unionists that their presence is thus being repudiated.
"There is no desire on the part of republicans to expel any inhabitant of Ireland or prohibit whoever on this island who wants to designate him or herself as British from doing so, or from endeavouring to fulfil that attitude socially, culturally and politically by any legitimate and democratic methods, including the possession of British citizenship.
"We have the right to pursue our goals politically and democratically. Unionists have the right to pursue their goals politically and democratically", Mr Adams said. "We believe that that assertion of sovereignty by the British government is contrary to the democratic wish of a majority of the Irish people.
"Irish sovereignty is a fact in its own right and quite separate from the entitlements of unionists and those who categorise themselves as British. At the same time it is my belief that, as London increasingly shuns them, more and more unionists will come to see the benefit of being 20 per cent of a united Ireland rather than 2 per cent of a United Kingdom", he said. "The Good Friday agreement is the foundation upon which new relationships between unionists and nationalists and republicans can be forged. Working the new institutions harmoniously together will be for the good of all of the people of this island.
"This engagement, properly functioning, will lead in time to a genuine process of national reconciliation", Mr Adams said.