The Sinn FΘin president, Mr Gerry Adams, said last night the IRA statement on decommissioning was "a huge, liberating step" and called on all sides not to ignore its significance.
Delivering a lecture entitled "The Political Legacy of the 1981 Hunger Strike" at Central Hall in Westminster, Mr Adams said the IRA's move on weapons was "commendable and courageous" and could unlock the peace process, provided the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, accepted his responsibilities under the Belfast Agreement and the unionists "build upon" the statement.
"Let everyone else now bear the collective weight of that and bring the process forward. I hope that in a decade's time, there isn't someone like me talking about this step and how it was not seized upon . . . how it was misconstrued, because this is about republicans trying to save a peace process," Mr Adams said.
Insisting he understood some republicans would have huge difficulties with the IRA's move, Mr Adams said he believed Irish republican volunteers had "a sense of themselves" since they had never been defeated.
Many people who resisted change had used the arms issue as a reason for not embracing the peace process, but Mr Adams described the IRA's statement on decommissioning as a "day for political leaps of imagination". He predicted that if the political institutions in Northern Ireland had "gone into a lengthy vacuum" without a political anchor, "then surely it was going to slip back into conflict".
That situation, he reflected, "would have suited those in the system who think they still have an empire and we're it".
He said it was not enough to reflect only on his words but it was "time to do something about all of this, because even though it isn't the fault of the vast majority of people in Britain, the British government still had a claim on an island that is not British territory.
"It is time to seize on today's opportunity and try and influence and move the situation on."
Offering his assessment of the troubles, Mr Adams said that just as the hunger strikes could have been resolved through dialogue, political difficulties in Northern Ireland over the past 30 years could have been resolved "if politics had been made to work.
"We are talking about entitlements, basic human rights and the right to a decent police service, an equality agenda and as an Irish republican and a democrat, the British government facing up to the wrongs it has inflicted on the people of my country."
About 400 people attended the conference and Mr Adams received a standing ovation when he entered the hall.
To more cheers, he told the audience: "It is an obscenity that Ireland remains partitioned. It is an obscenity that there is sectarianism and that it is so rife in our community."
Last night's meeting was chaired by Ms Jennifer McCann, a former inmate in Maghaberry prison, Co Antrim.
Mr Adams will speak at a press conference in London this morning.