The Belfast Agreement will have failed if the RUC is not replaced by a totally new police service, Sinn Fein has warned.
At a press conference yesterday one of the party's Belfast councillors, Mr Alex Maskey, said: "The debate about the RUC's future needs a dose of reality injected into it. The RUC is totally unacceptable to the entire nationalist people."
Mr Niall O Murchu, Sinn Fein's youth spokesman, said: "A police service must enjoy the support of the people it polices. It must attract the people into its ranks it purports to serve.
"The nationalist people will never join the RUC. Therefore what is urgently required is a new police service which is unarmed, accountable and drawn from both the nationalist and unionist people."
Asked if this would include former members of the IRA, Mr Maskey said: "It is quite right and proper that all members of the community will be entitled to join. There will be requirements, which should include human rights violations. The service should be open to ex-prisoners.
"We don't want to see the RUC there under another name, especially with senior police officers who have been guilty of human rights violations."
The deputy leader of the DUP, Mr Peter Robinson, said: "Today's confirmation that Sinn Fein is seeking places in a `new police service' for their IRA colleagues demonstrates our analysis of the agreement."
Mr Robinson conceded it had been indicated that persons with convictions would not be entitled to be part of the police service, but added: "It still would not exclude the cunning and more expert IRA terrorists who were never caught or convicted."