Adams to urge Bush to help peace process

US president George Bush’s administration needs to encourage the Irish and British governments to speedily resolve the political vacuum in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was arguing today.

As he prepared to leave Belfast for a five-day tour of the United States and Canada, the west Belfast MP hoped the US government could help prevent the suspension of devolution in Northern Ireland becoming protracted.

Mr Adams, who will visit Washington, New York, New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto and will meet President Bush’s adviser on Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, said: “We will be saying that the vacuum which has been created should not be allowed to be protracted.

“The vacuum is there because the anchor of the political institutions had been removed.

“That was a mistake and having accepted that, we now have to rectify that mistake.”

Former Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid suspended devolution and re-imposed direct rule of Northern Ireland from Westminster last month in a bid to prevent the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Agreement was plunged into crisis last moth after an alleged republican spy ring was discovered in Dr Reid’s office in Belfast.

Ulster Unionists threatened to join the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists in a walk-out from the executive but that was prevented by the suspension of the assembly and other devolved institutions.

At a 40-minute meeting yesterday in Stormont, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble told Mr Adams that republicans needed to spell out how they would complete the transition from paramilitarism to pursuing politics exclusively.

The former Northern Ireland First Minister also turned down a suggestion from Mr Adams that they should address each other’s party executives in a bid to repair the strained relationship and any misunderstanding between their two parties.

The Sinn Fein leader, who will meet Ambassador Haass in Washington tomorrow and New Jersey Governor James McGreevey later this week, noted before leaving for North America today that the Clinton and Bush administrations had in recent years played the rule of encouraging the British and Irish Governments to make progress in the peace process.

He told PA News: “Do they need to encourage the two governments now? Yes, big time.”

Meanwhile nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan was today preparing to outline his vision for Irish unity during a meeting with sixth formers from the Royal Belfast Academic Institution.

The majority of pupils at the school would come from a unionist background and Mr Durkan’s speech was being compared in significance to his address to North Down Ulster Unionists shortly after his elevation as SDLP leader last year.