When the Sinn Fein president meets the British Prime Minister this week, Mr Gerry Adams will tell Mr Tony Blair "politely but very firmly" that it is time for Britain to end its constitutional claim on the North.
"For the first time since 1921, a British prime minister is going to hear Irish republicans politely but very firmly tell him that it's time to go; that it's time for Britain to end its constitutional claim to a part of our country; that it's time to heal the divisions fuelled by Britain's presence and it's time to build a new relationship between the peoples of these islands, based on mutual respect and independence."
Speaking in Kilmichael, Co Cork, at the commemoration of the War of Independence ambush, Mr Adams said he recognised "the risks which Mr Blair has taken, and I believe he is well-disposed toward the quest for peace in Ireland".
On changes in Bunreacht na hEireann, Mr Adams said: "No Irish government can change the Irish Constitution in a way which seeks to change the definition of the Irish nation as being the island of Ireland - all 32 counties. The constitutional change that is required is the end of British sovereignty in Ireland."
Mr Adams said the current administration in Dublin was "having to deal with the question of the North and of a British jurisdiction in Ireland in a way that is has never had to do before".
Earlier, in an interview with the Independent on Sunday, Mr Adams said his party would judge the results of the Stormont negotiations on their merits: "We will see the shape of the deal, we will take a democratic judgment on it within the party and then pursue the outcome of that."
The present talks, he said, were a phase and if there was no agreement on a united Ireland, Sinn Fein would continue to pursue that objective.
Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionist Party leader reiterated his advice to Mr Blair not to receive Mr Adams at Downing Street. Mr David Trimble told BBC television that the British Prime Minister would know "from his own security assessment" that the probability was that Sinn Fein would "revert to violence in the New Year".
He claimed the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, was trying to drive the UUP out of the talks: "We are astonished at the way she has conducted matters in Northern Ireland since the summer.
"I got the feeling she was trying to drive us out of the talks in September. I've got the feeling again in terms of the way in which she has constantly over the last few days been handing out concession after concession to Sinn Fein," Mr Trimble said.
The UUP leader has been invited to take part in bilateral talks before Christmas by Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness. However, Mr Trimble said Sinn Fein was not living in the real world: "They are not negotiating seriously. They haven't put forward any serious proposals in these talks at all." Mr McGuinness was one of a number of speakers from nationalist parties at a protest rally yesterday at the foot of the British army's look-out post at Glassdrummond in south Armagh. The deputy leader of the SDLP, Mr Seamus Mallon, and Dr Rory O'Hanlon of Fianna Fail also spoke.