Adams: Paramilitaries must disband

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams called on loyalists to "give peace a chance"

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has called on dissident paramilitary groups operating in Northern Ireland to disband.

And he said that armed loyalist groups would not necessarily have to follow the rival Irish Republican Army's decision to decommission its weapons.

"As far as the loyalists are concerned, I simply want the loyalists to stop," he told CNN.

"I'm not concerned with the loyalists never decommissioning their weapons, as long as they stop using them.

"I'm not concerned with putting loyalists through all sorts of trials and tribulations.

VIDEO Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams discusses the IRA's move to disarm (October 24) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Unionist MP Ken Maginnis says the IRA's move is progress. (October 24) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MORE STORIES • IRA arms move prompts UK pullbacks  • Pressure builds on Spain's ETA    EXTRA INFORMATION • IRA statement  • Independent Commission report  • Blair statement    RESOURCES CNN Access: Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams     QUICKVOTE Will the IRA's move on arms help bring lasting peace in Northern Ireland? Yes No View Results

"I just want them to stop killing Catholics. I want them to stop attacking nationalists. I want them to desist in their activities.

"I want them to give peace a chance."

Interviewed on Wednesday, Adams was asked whether the IRA's move would leave a vacuum into which more extremist groups, such as the Real IRA, could thrive.

He said: "I think these small micro-groups, the self-proclaimed Real IRA, should disband.

"There obviously is a possibility that they may try to exploit (the situation) and they may feel that people like myself have sold-out the republican cause.

"I think within what I would call genuine republicanism, which may involve a whole wide raft of people, there will be difficulties.

"There will be emotional problems, there will be people who are opposed to this, and I think that's OK -- I can understand why people would be opposed to this.

"What we have to do is remain united. What we have to have is clear heads and brave hearts.

"What we have to have is a commitment to our republican cause and a realisation that we have to keep stretching ourselves because we want peace more than anybody else."

He described the IRA decommissioning decision as "an enormously historical and important leap of imagination by the IRA -- an enormously liberating move."

He said: "The next step is for all of us who are in political life ... to get on with what we are mandated to do, and that is make politics work -- to consolidate the peace process."

He added: "The IRA didn't have to do this. The only pressure the IRA comes under is from its own base.

"Clearly, when we have 7.5 million people on the brink of starvation in Afghanistan, that is hugely moving for us, and when we saw 6,000 people killed in seconds in the (World Trade Center) Twin Towers and in other parts of the U.S., that, at a human level, hurt and affected everyone who was witness to it.

"But the IRA moved because it wanted to prevent conflict from re-emerging, not because it was pressurised."

Adams played a key role in the run-up to Tuesday's IRA announcement that it was scrapping arms.

Asked about the timing and reasons for the IRA announcement, he said: "There have been almost 300 bomb and gun attacks by loyalists, including the killing recently of a journalist.

"Because little schoolchildren in North Belfast still have to go through a tunnel of hate in order to get to their primary school.

"Because the British government have in a serialised way suspended political institutions.

"Because the political institutions were about to be removed as a political anchor for a peace process.

"I think we have to take the IRA at face value when they say they moved to prevent the peace process from collapsing."