'Claim the moment,' Clinton tells N. Irish

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- An optimistic-sounding President Bill Clinton ended a visit to Belfast by telling an audience of 8,000 people to: "Go out and claim your moment."

Clinton was addressing the crowd at the newly-built Belfast Odyssey Centre, after concluding a key round of talks with Northern Ireland's political leaders.

He urged the people of Northern Ireland to strive for a peaceful solution to the Northern Ireland conflict by adhering to the principles of the Good Friday peace accord drawn up in 1998.

"When people are at war, they measure progress by counting victims. But in peace, it is more difficult to measure progress," said Clinton.

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But in an effort to illustrate the effect of the province's progress towards peace, he recited a list of benefits to the community, including improved economic conditions such as increased foreign investment and exports and lower unemployment.

"Go out and claim your moment, it is still yours to claim," he said.

Insisting the U.S. would, under any leader, "systematically root out terrorism and make sure the peace agreement takes hold", Clinton said steps would be taken to eradicate the financial support of terrorism from U.S. sources.

Compromise from both sides of the political divide held the key to the peace process moving forward, he said.

The Good Friday Agreement is foundering over Protestant demands for greater commitment by the IRA to disarm and Catholic demands for reform of Northern Ireland's Protestant-majority police force.

Addressing the concerns of both unionists and nationalists, Clinton said the Patten report recommending a more representative police force must be implemented and supported unilaterally.

And all arms must be put beyond use to "reduce fear and mistrust," he added.

Talks with political leaders on Wednesday had centred on those topics but progress was said to have been minimal.

The IRA and other mainstream guerrilla groups are observing ceasefires but dissidents on both sides of the sectarian divide have been responsible for sporadic violence. Seventeen people have been killed this year.

Earlier in the day, Clinton had faced the anger of hardline Protestant politicians in Belfast, who told him that in the search for peace in Northern Ireland, the U.S. unfairly favoured the IRA's Roman Catholic minority.

Despite the setbacks, Clinton, making possibly the last official foreign tour of his presidency that ends on January 20, ploughed on with talks with the main political leaders of the British-ruled province of 1.6 million people.

Before the public address in Belfast, Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. Senator George Mitchell had emerged from nearly three hours of negotiations with optimistic words but no breakthrough.

"Today is not about breakthroughs," U.S. National Security spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters after the meetings.

"Stemming from the president's visit we can see the parties continuing to make progress."

Martin McGuinness, a leader of Sinn Fein, political ally of the IRA, said the meetings "covered a lot of ground about the present difficulties.

"Hopefully the meetings will concentrate minds."

"Blessed is Bill the peacemaker," "Close encounters of the charismatic kind," "Jedi master of peace," were just a few of the headlines in the Dublin press about Clinton's stay in the Republic on Tuesday.

Dublin was Clinton's first stop on a three-day visit that will also include London, where he will meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace on Thursday before he returns to Washington on the same day.

Clinton refused to comment on developments in the U.S. election battle until vice-president Al Gore makes his scheduled address to the nation later on Wednesday.

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Irish Government
Northern Ireland Assembly
Northern Ireland Office
The White House
University of Warwick
Buckingham Palace
Democratic Unionist Party
Sinn Fein
Ulster Unionist Party

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