The Irish tricolour flying outside Belfast City Hall

Sinn Fein Calls on Unionists to Negotiate

The party insisted that it offered no threat and was offering the hand of friendship.

The call to unionists came as thousands of nationalists rallied in the centre of Belfast to mark the 26th anniversary of the introduction of internment without trial. The practice was abandoned in 1975.

The marchers paraded from the republican heartland of west Belfast to the City Hall which until recently had represented the unionist domination of the city. Now it has a nationalist mayor for the first time in its history, Alban McGuinness of the SDLP.

Posters demanding the release of prisoners vied for position amid a sea of Irish tricolours in front of the City Hall where the Union Jack flew.

Internment was introduced in August 1971, when throughout Northern Ireland 3,000 soldiers stormed houses in pursuit of 300 men who were alleged to support terrorist organisations. The suspects were imprisoned without trial.

Caoimhghin O Caolain appealing to unionists

The Government's policy was met with violent opposition, with 14 people killed in the first day and the next 48 hours becoming among the bloodiest in the province in half a century.

The policy was intended to be the decisive weapon in the fight against terrorism, but in the words of former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Tom King, it became instead the IRA's "greatest recruiting sergeant".

On the platform outside the Belfast City Hall on Sunday were Sinn Fein's two newly elected MPs, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and the single Sinn Fein member of the Dublin parliament, Caoimhghin O Caolain, who won his seat in June. He called on unionist parties not to walk away from talks at Stormont next month:

"Unionists must be at the talks table. That is our clear message here today. It is all our futures that we seek to address. It is a formula for all our governance that we seek to address. We do not seek domination. We do not seek to roll back the pages of history and reverse the coin. We seek to go forward together."

If the IRA ceasefire holds, Sinn Fein looks set to be admitted to the multi-party peace talks when they resume on 15 September. The Reverend Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists have said they will not take part. The larger Ulster Unionist party has still to decide.