Still hope for political progress, says Adams

THERE is still hope for a political breakthrough in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said last night.

As Ulster Unionists prepared for a potentially explosive meeting of their ruling council today, the West Belfast MP said the British and Irish Governments would have to make it clear that the Good Friday Agreement was "as good as it gets."

But he also said at a book launch in Thurles, Co Tipperary: "I believe, and my recent discussions with the two governments support this view, that we can still make progress if the political will can be found and if political leaders are prepared to lead.

"We should, all of us take considerable pride in what we have collectively achieved in recent years.

"We have to keep going we have to keep pushing ahead. There remains so many matters still to be resolved the human rights and equality agenda, the policing issue, demilitarisation and much more.

"The Good Friday Agreement identified what was wrong and how it could be fixed. We have to stay focused on achieving this."

Mr Adams said unionists needed to "face reality" that there was no alternative to the Good Friday Agreement. He said: "of course, those unionists who are fearful of change and who don't want to be part of building a new political dispensation a new an better future for the people they represent can absent themselves from this process. But they cannot stop it."

He called for a date for Assembly elections, insisting it would inject a "new dynamic" into the process.