Mr Adams was speaking in New York on the start of a four-day tour of the United States, during which he will meet President Bill Clinton.

He said: "The most crucial thing is not some ritual of decommissioning but that the guns remain silent.

"The immediate task should not be to make a big issue of taking away what some see as an assurance of self-protection, and could easily be replaced anyway, but to convince the people that this is no longer necessary."

Mr Adams' comments followed calls from the representatives of loyalist paramilitaries that the IRA must make the first step in disarming.

Mr Adams, speaking at a Friends of Sinn Fein meeting attended by about 400 people, said: "The Good Friday agreement is the beginning. That's all it is, the beginning."

An amnesty will protect paramilitaries from prosecution

Asked whether the IRA's arsenal would be decommissioned in line with the accord, he said: "Every commitment we made when we signed up for this agreement, we will honour."

Earlier, in a speech to the American-Irish Historical Society, Mr Adams said the peace agreement "commences with a view of consent and self-determination that no Irish republican could accept."