SINN FEIN will turn up at the start of all party talks on June 10th, whether or not an IRA ceasefire has been declared, according to Mr Gerry Adams.
The Sinn Fein president said his party would turn up on the basis of its electoral mandate. It would continue to press for "real negotiations" and for the release of all political prisoners.
In a statement at a rally in Dublin on Saturday to mark the 80th anniversary of the Easter Rising, Mr Adams warned that if Sinn Fein was excluded from negotiations, no lasting agreement was possible. Nor was agreement possible without unionist involvement or that of the two governments.
He said his party would give "strong republican leadership" and echoed a controversial statement last year about the IRA not having "gone away" in what he described as "a clear and unequivocal message" to the unionist leadership.
"Unionists may have succeeded in securing from a willing British government their partitionist election and their Stormont assembly. But Sinn Fein is not going to go away, you know, and we will be fighting these elections to give Irish nationalists and republicans the opportunity to, assert our position also to reject their Stormont assembly to reject partition and to demand the political and constitutional changes necessary for a just and lasting peace."
Sinn Fein's "peace agenda" would be the alternative to the unionist agenda of domination and partition at the election, he said. "On June 10th we will demand our place at the negotiating table. We intend asserting the rights of our electorate and we will defy the British government's arrogant assumption that it can dictate to the Irish people who they should or should not elect."
He criticised the British government's "squandering" of the opportunity for peace. "Whatever disappointments we may all share for the opportunity which John Major has squandered, be assured that there exists in Ireland, and internationally, a vast reservoir of goodwill and solidarity which wishes us well in our endeavours.
"We have to tap into that reservoir and use it effectively to counter the London government's efforts to cobble together yet another of their undemocratic arrangements.
"At times, sensible people and democrats could be driven to distraction by the attitude of British policy makers towards Ireland. But we should take succour from the fact that while some of them may have stalled the historical, process towards Irish independence, none of them have succeeded in halting it.
"From Lloyd George through Harold Wilson, from Ted Heath, to Jim Callaghan to John Major, all have failed to fulfil their responsibility towards the people of Ireland. But we have survived it all. Where now is Maggie Thatcher?"