Blair holds crisis talks with Adams as 'both sides' blamed for Belfast riots

Tony Blair held crisis talks with the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, yesterday to try to bring a halt to the renewed outbreak of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

Mr Adams told the Prime Minister that the IRA had not orchestrated the latest attacks in Belfast, which ended with a policeman in hospital with burns to his face after his car was hit by a petrol bomb on Sunday night.

Mr Adams blamed loyalists for the violence. "This is the crisis within Unionism manifesting itself in sectarian attacks on vulnerable nationalist communities," he said.

But Downing Street said it believed that republican para-militaries were involved in the latest troubles. "There is a recognition that the events in east Belfast over the last week or so have involved some elements of paramilitaries from both sides, which is why it is important that everyone ... do all they can to ensure there is no repeat," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.

A number of police officers were shot at on Sunday when they tried to stop a group setting fire to cars. They were also attacked with petrol bombs and missiles in the loyalist Donegal Pass area near Belfast city centre. Violence has engulfed east Belfast for the past fortnight and has now begun to spread to other parts of the city. Mr Blair, who is holding a series of talks with Northern Irish political leaders, including the First Minister, David Trimble, to try to stop the violence, told Mr Adams he had to do all he could to make sure the peace process started making progress.

Mr Adams said the talks had been positive and the Prime Minister had "brought a focus" to the process.

However, the Government could not step back from its own role, he added. "There are issues which are directly the responsibility of this London Government which have not been fully implemented yet.

"The reforms of policing, for example, demilitarisation, the equality agenda, all need continued progress. And all of us are concerned with recent events back home, particularly around those interface areas.

"I told the Prime Minister that what is happening in the beleaguered community of the Short Strand reaches back here into Number 10 Downing Street."

Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein wanted the violence to be alleviated. "The Government has to ... ensure that no one thinks there is any alternative to the Good Friday Agreement or the changes which it contains," he said. "So I think there is a need for all of us to knuckle down, and try and get a calming influence."

¿ Police in Strabane, Co Londonderry came under under petrol bomb and stoning attack last night during a security alert on an industrial estate. The trouble came after a number of houses were evacuated while an army bomb disposal team examined a suspicious object.