The Northern Ireland Office has rejected a claim by SDLP leader Mark Durkan that Northern Secretary Peter Hain is adopting an indifferent attitude to recent UVF killings.
Mr Durkan said Mr Hain must "come clean" on the state of the UVF ceasefire after the loyalist organisation was blamed for four murders and numerous attacks since the beginning of July.
Since July 1st four Protestant men were murdered in Belfast in the reignited UVF-LVF feud. The UVF was blamed for all of these killings.
The funeral of the fourth person to be killed in the feud, 42-year-old Michael Green, took place yesterday. His family insisted he had no involvement with the LVF.
The UVF has stated that it will continue attacks on people allegedly associated with the LVF and will not end the killing until the LVF is "wiped out" or disbanded.
Some unionist politicians and Protestant clergy have tried unsuccessfully to mediate in the dispute. Even David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the UVF, has admitted he is powerless to intervene in the feud.
Mr Durkan, in a hard-hitting statement, said the longer Mr Hain waited before pronouncing on the state of the UVF ceasefire the "more the UVF will believe it can get away with" the killings and attacks.
Waiting for the next Independent Monitoring Commission report on whether the UVF was engaging in paramilitary activity, due in October, was not sufficient.
"Yet the Secretary of State is evading making a decision on this and seems to be shrugging his shoulders and saying that he will wait to see what the Independent Monitoring Commission will say," accused Mr Durkan.
"Indeed, the NIO [Northern Ireland Office] is appearing to treat murders by the UVF as if they are almost par for the course in the peace process. That is very dangerous." Mr Durkan added: "In particular I am concerned that there is an attitude in the NIO that this is a clean-up operation by the UVF which might be a prelude to positive movement from them. If so, that is a very dangerous bit of cynicism.
"After all, there has been nothing clean about all of these murders, which has even left two men dead who were not LVF members. I hope that it is not the motive for the Secretary of State's apparent indifference on the UVF ceasefire."
An NIO spokesman said that all paramilitary ceasefires including that of the UVF were kept under review.
"We reject any suggestion that we are indifferent to what is happening. The Secretary of State had said from the outset that the feud is gangsterism masquerading as loyalism and that his focus is on bringing it to an end.
"The most effective way to do that is through the police response," he added.
