Sinn Fein's chief negotiator Mr Martin McGuinness today called for a meeting with senior loyalists, including Ulster Freedom Fighters leader Johnny Adair.
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The Northern Ireland education minister said the only way to stop the cycle of sectarian violence currently engulfing the province was for all sides to engage in dialogue.
He said: "I would love to meet with the Loyalist Commission and I would be prepared to meet with Johnny Adair and I would be prepared to meet with the UDA in the Shankill Road.
"Because I think all of them need to get the message that whatever they think they can achieve in terms of continuing attacks on the Catholic community, in reality, sectarianism is the road to nowhere and it is as damaging to them who inflict sectarian murder on the Catholic community as it is to the Catholic community itself."
Mr McGuinness also called on all dissident republican groups to cease activity.
"My message to them is they should stop," he said. "They are not doing the Catholic, nationalist or republican community any favours whatsoever by the actions that they engage in.
"What they effectively do is empower those militarists within the British establishment and empower those unionists who are opposed to the Agreement to set about their dirty work - the killing of Catholics in Belfast, and the type of incident we saw in Newcastle in Co Down when two priests were almost burnt in their beds."
The Mid-Ulster MP was speaking at a press conference where Sinn Fein claimed there had been a total of 363 sectarian attacks against Catholics in the North over the last three months.
Party colleague Mr Mitchell McLaughlin insisted the vast majority of recent sectarian attacks had been perpetrated on the Catholic community.
The Foyle MLA said: "There have, of course, been sectarian attacks on Protestant homes and where this has happened, republicans have been active on the ground in bringing these attacks to an end.
"In the last three months there have been 363 attacks against Catholics. On average four sectarian attacks a day for the last three months.
"There have been 144 bomb attacks, 25 shooting incidents, 151 homes damaged, 42 people assaulted, and Gerard Lawlor was shot dead by loyalists as he walked home along the Antrim Road on Monday night."
PA