MR GERRY ADAMS said yesterday the peace process could be reconstructed if "all sides play their part". But the Sinn Fein president repeated that speculation about an IRA convention to renew the IRA ceasefire was without foundation.
Mr Adams, who is to meet a top-level Irish-American delegation led by a former US congressman, Mr Bruce Morrison, in Belfast tomorrow, said the British government had the "primary responsibility" for renewing the peace process.
Mr Adams said the visit of Mr Morrison, who was a key US intermediary in the run-up to the IRA ceasefire of August, 1994, indicated the positive Irish-American interest in the current peace process, and also a wider interest in the US.
He said the visit would "allow Bruce and his colleagues to identify the causes of the collapse of the peace process, and what is required to construct a new and credible peace process. This could help strengthen the international support for a real and meaningful process of negotiations
Mr Morrison is due to arrive in Belfast tomorrow morning in the company of a US delegation including Mr Niall O'Dowd, editor of the Irish Voice, the businessman, Mr Charles Feeney, and the trade unionist, Mr Joe Jameson.
They will meet Mr Adams and the Alliance leader, Lord Alderdice, tomorrow; the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, on Sunday; the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, on Monday; and the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, in Dublin on Tuesday. They also hope to meet the two loyalist parties, as well as other politicians.
Yesterday, Mr Adams, in an interview in the weekly Sinn Fein paper, An Phoblacht/Republican News, spelled out what benefits he believed republicans had gained from the Sinn Fein peace strategy."
"It has demonstrated clearly our commitment to peace and a negotiated peace settlement. It also exposed the unionist parties and the British government as the intransigent parties in this conflict.
It has strengthened the Sinn Fein mandate. It has led to the involvement of the international community in building a process of conflict-resolution - something which never happened before and which the British and unionists vehemently opposed and it has brought a wide range of democratic forces into play in this situation.
"Two years ago I said, having studied the example of the ANC, that negotiations do not signal an end to political struggle but an extension of it. Negotiations are a new area of struggle for republicans." Sinn Fein's peace strategy had as its objective a negotiated peace on the island.
He repeated Sinn Fein demands for a "credible" peace process - inclusive negotiations without preconditions within a structured timeframe.
