Adams praises Clintons' peace role

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness have paid tribute to the role Bill and Hillary Clinton had played in assisting the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Mr Adams said: “President Clinton in his eight years of office played a crucial role in the peace process. Hillary Clinton as First Lady and now as a Senator still plays a very informed and important role. I think they represent the best of US opinion on these matters.

“President Bush’s administration continues with all of that work.”

Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness discussed recent developments in the peace process with the Clintons.

He said afterwards that the DUP would have to be more realistic in its approach.

In response to DUP claims that a policing and justice minister for Northern Ireland could not have previous convictions for paramilitarism, Mr Adams said: “We do not want to be negotiating with the DUP in public on these matters. But they have to have realistic objectives. They cannot set the bar at heaven’s height.

“This has to be a job of political work between those of us who want to see a society working in some sort of harmony and particularly those, and the DUP didn’t, who signed the Good Friday Agreement and are obliged to bring about those changes.

“The British government as one of the co-authors of the Agreement has to be bringing about the type of changes that are required.”

Meanwhile, senior Democratic Unionist representative Ian Paisley Junior hit out at Mr Clinton’s assertion that the Good Friday Agreement was not dead.

The North Antrim Assembly member said: “This is a man who is clearly out of touch with political reality.

“A cheerleader of a football team would have more standing now than this self-proclaimed cheerleader for peace.”