Sinn Féin's increased electoral mandate in Westminster and local government elections supported the party's appeal for the IRA to adopt purely peaceful means, Gerry Adams said yesterday.
Speaking in Dublin at the launch of a campaign against the proposed European constitution. Mr Adams said he viewed Sinn Féin's popular vote as backing for his stance on the IRA.
Referring to his appeal, made in the first week of the Westminster election campaign, Mr Adams said: "My call and my appeal was a public one, and therefore I do interpret Sinn Féin's result as an endorsement of that call."
He repeated an appeal to the British government to press ahead with efforts to get the peace process back on track and to implement outstanding aspects of the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Adams is due to meet the British prime minister for talks in Downing Street, as are other party leaders, this week.
The US special envoy, Dr Mitchell Reiss, returns to Ireland today to assess the post-election political situation.
"In this, the final phase of Tony Blair's premiership, we have a very unique opportunity to sort out all of these matters. But it needs a collective push to move it forward," Mr Adams said.
"Mr Blair has been very good on some of these core issues. It is my view that he wants to bed them down. He wants it to be part of his legacy, and therefore there is a relatively limited time; the time to bed it down is now."
Meanwhile DUP Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson used what he called the IRA's "refusal to meet the absolute democratic bottom line" to press the SDLP to join in a voluntary coalition which would enable the return of power to Stormont.
Mr Donaldson, speaking in Derry, pressed the SDLP MP for Foyle, Mark Durkan, to consider joining "other democratic parties" and excluding republicans.
"The restoration of a devolved administration as soon as possible remains the Democratic Unionist Party's principal priority," he said.
"Whilst some, such as the newly-elected MP for this constituency, still seek to denigrate the DUP's commitment, I believe that the facts bear out that it is others, and not the DUP, who are the brakes to progress."
He added: "Sinn Féin/IRA's refusal to meet the absolute democratic bottom line of a total end to all IRA paramilitary and criminal activity and complete, visible, and verifiable decommissioning means that we must move on without republicans.
"Yet the SDLP say that they refuse to consider a voluntary coalition with ourselves and other democratic parties. The SDLP criticise the DUP on the issue of power-sharing but it is in fact they who refuse our offer to share power."