A leading loyalist today urged nationalists to reserve their judgement on the Ulster Defence Association's ceasefire until next year.
West Belfast councillor Frank McCoubrey was responding to SDLP and Sinn Féin comments on tomorrow's six-month review by the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) of the UDA ceasefire.
Earlier, the SDLP's Mr John Dallat warned: "When the UDA announced their 12-month ceasefire in February it was given a cautious welcome ... The public were told that there was restructuring going on within the UDA and the UPRG would become its public face instead of its war-mongering brigadiers.
"Any threat to end it now will be treated with the contempt it deserves."
Following the ending of a bloody feud within the UDA and Ulster Freedom Fighters, members of the UPRG declared a 12-month ceasefire in February which they said would be kept under constant review.
The UPRG, which provides political analysis to the UDA, also announced that it was submitting the name of a go-between to Gen John de Chastelain's international decommissioning body but said it would only respond to full disarmament from the IRA.
The UDA confirmed that it was currently going through internal restructuring and it intended the UPRG to become its public face instead of its brigadiers.
The ceasefire followed a turbulent few months in the UDA, with a feud claiming the life of its South Antrim brigadier John Gregg and resulting in the expulsion from Belfast of supporters of the rogue loyalist Johnny Adair.
Sinn Féin councillor Mr Paul Butler, whose house was targeted in a bomb attack in west Belfast two days ago, was today cynical about the existence of the UDA ceasefire.
"I am a little shocked that the UPRG believes the UDA is on cessation.
"In the past six months things have been quieter but a significant level of violent UDA activity is ongoing. In Lisburn and Dunmurry alone there have been a series of violent attacks and my family has been targeted just days ago in an attack," the Lisburn councillor said.
However Mr McCoubrey, a member of the UPRG, dismissed the SDLP and Sinn Fein's comments as "predictable".
"I would urge John Dallat and Paul Butler to bear with the UDA and judge it in a year's time.
"Let's look at what has happened. Certainly we have had the quietest summer for many years during the marching season and along the interfaces.
"That is down to the hard work of people like the UPRG and the Protestant Interface Network.
"Loyalists have been working positively in areas that were beset by internal feuds and interface violence and we are now at the point where there is light at the end of the tunnel."
PA