Mark Durkan has ruled out any future voluntary coalition that would exclude Sinn Féin from the Northern Executive and insisted that a vote for the SDLP is the best way to pressurise Sinn Féin and the DUP respectively into peaceful politics and power-sharing.
The SDLP leader at the launch of his party's manifesto in Belfast yesterday said, in the face of UUP and DUP calls for a voluntary coalition that would isolate Sinn Féin, that such a proposal was "not on the agenda" because it was contrary to the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Durkan delivered direct messages to the UUP leader David Trimble and the DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson yesterday. About the call from Mr Trimble and Ulster Unionists for a voluntary coalition, he said: "Some people might regard it as touching that they want to do a nice little voluntary coalition with the SDLP, and somehow Sinn Féin can be made to stand aside from that. But that is not on, because it was not the way we negotiated the agreement."
To Mr Robinson he said: "I put inclusion into the agreement. I have stood strong against every trick and tactic to take it out. That's why, in response to Peter Robinson's calls now for voluntary coalition, I say: it's not on the agenda. It's just not on.
"Peter, you might have been able to negotiate a new British exclusion law and a version of voluntary coalition with Sinn Féin in your December deal. But you will never get the SDLP to break the agreement. And you know it."
Mr Durkan said that the Hume/Adams talks, which were the precursor to the 1994 IRA ceasefire, were about a commitment to securing peace.
"How can that commitment not be questioned in the face of robberies, murders and cover-ups? In the face of the failure of the Sinn Féin leadership to do the most basic thing - to tell the truth?" said Mr Durkan.
"All this has damaged the agreement, the peace process and the good standing of northern nationalism at home and abroad. It has got to end. I am pleased that Gerry Adams - nearly 18 years after the start of Hume/Adams, nearly 12 years after the first IRA ceasefire and seven years from the agreement - has asked the IRA to accept peace.
"I hope that he means it. I hope he means real peace, decent peace. And I hope that the IRA delivers soon what we should have had long ago.
"But we know - not least from the McCartney case - that it's not what they say or spin, but what they do that counts.
"Left to their own devices, we know that the IRA won't go away. Nor will the DUP accept the agreement. But under positive pressure, I am convinced that they can be forced to do it all."
Later he outlined the main proposals in the SDLP's manifesto:
