DUBLIN, Feb 6: Sinn Fein remains committed to peace in Northern Ireland, the party's president said on Saturday after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) withdrew a conditional offer to put its weapons beyond use.

"Sinn Fein is totally opposed to any return to conflict, we are totally wedded to our peace strategy. We resent greatly any suggestion to the contrary," Gerry Adams, president of the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein, told journalists in Dublin.

Efforts to forge a political settlement between the British-ruled province's feuding Catholic and Protestant communities ground to a halt in December after a 26.5 million pounds bank heist that Britain and Ireland have blamed on the IRA.

Asked repeatedly if Sinn Fein, which draws its support from Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, would now have to distance itself from the IRA, Adams said that his party's role as a bridge to the outlawed guerrilla group had been abused.

"The (British and Irish) governments will obviously try to play down and to minimize the crisis. Or they try to project it as a crisis within republicanism. The crisis is within the peace process."

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said on Friday that Sinn Fein, which ultimately wants to see a united Ireland, must sever its links with the IRA once and for all if it wants to play a role in politics north or south of the border.

Adams said both governments, which have accused Sinn Fein of knowing in advance about the theft from Northern Bank's Belfast headquarters, needed to be less confrontational.

"Government ministers doing meetings with Sinn Fein which are businesslike meetings and then presenting them to the media as confrontational, as high-noon ... isn't helpful whatsoever."-Reuters