The Northern Ireland Secretary has demanded full political backing for the province's police service in a bid to catch paramilitary killers.
Dr John Reid made the call as he visited a Royal Mail centre following the sectarian loyalist murder of Catholic postman Daniel McColgan.
Dr Reid insisted police were doing everything possible to arrest and charge those behind the killings. He defended the police's ability to catch terrorists.
But he said: "You cannot demand an effective policing service if you do not give that police service your support".
The Northern Ireland Secretary, whose father was a postman, visited sorting offices on the outskirts of north Belfast to hear the fears of workers following the murder of Mr McColgan by the Ulster Defence Association earlier this month.
Warning that the next victim of the paramilitary gunmen could be a Protestant, Dr Reid hit out at the "qualified" condemnation, which came from the other side of the sectarian divide following every murder. "Those who take a tit-for-tat approach to terrorism will never tackle it," he said.
The UDA murdered Mr McColgan (20) as he began work in the staunchly loyalist Rathcoole estate on the edge of north Belfast.
PA