Republicans are "incensed" by the focus on IRA disbandment during the current political crisis in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin leader Mr Gerry Adams said tonight.
Speaking at the launch in Belfast of a biography of veteran republican Joe Cahill, Mr Adams said: "There is a big focus at this time on the IRA. Many republicans are incensed by this.
"Eight years ago the IRA called its first cessation. It did so because Sinn Féin, along with others, sought to create an alternative to armed actions which held out the real prospect of achieving national, democratic and individual rights.
"The IRA could have stayed with the armed tactics of the previous decades. It didn't. It took the courageous decision which created the space in which hope and peace could grow and in which a peace process could go."
Pressure on the IRA to disband intensified in the wake of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair's speech in Belfast last Thursday when he told republicans they had reached a "fork in the road" in the peace process where they had to choose between paramilitarism and politics.
However a senior source in the Provisionals dismissed disbandment calls and denied in a weekend briefing of journalists that they were a threat to the process.
In a bid to find a way out of the current crisis, the Irish and British Governments are planning a series of meetings with the Northern Ireland parties within the next fortnight about a possible review of the peace process.
Insisting tonight Sinn Féin was aiming for a "just peace settlement," Mr Adams said his party needed a similar commitment from unionists and the British government.
Although he alleged there were elements within the British establishment and unionism who were trying to thwart the process and defeat republicans, the Sinn Fein leader said he still believed the process would succeed.
"Can we do so without a political process? No. Can we do so with the Good Friday Agreement in cold storage? No. Can we do so if the rights and entitlements of citizens are withheld? No. The way forward is obvious. Our rights and entitlements are not up for barter," he said.