The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, is due to meet President Clinton's National Security Adviser, Mr Samuel Berger, in Washington today during his first visit to the US since the first IRA ceasefire ended in February 1996. Mr Adams, his party's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, and Dail deputy, Mr Caoimhghin O'Caolain, began a five-day visit to the US last night by attending a reception in their honour in Washington hosted by the Irish American Unity Conference. Tomorrow night they will be guests of honour at a $500-a-plate fund-raising dinner in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
During the visit they will meet the US Commerce Secretary, Mr William Daly, Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator Chris Dodds, the Mayor of New York, Mr Rudolph Giuliani, and other political figures. Mr McGuinness will fly to San Francisco on Saturday to visit three men who escaped from the Maze Prison in 1983 and are fighting extradition. As he left Dublin Airport yesterday, Mr Adams said the visit would give Sinn Fein its first opportunity to talk face-to-face with the new personnel advising President Clinton on Northern Ireland. "We want a continuation of the very balanced approach that President Clinton has shown since he became President," he said.
"We will be engaging with the White House, with political leaders from both sides of the House on Capitol Hill, with mainstream opinion right across Irish America and wider, and we will be seeking continued support for our particular view of the way these negotiations should go," he said.
He welcomed as significant the meeting on Monday between a Catholic Church delegation led by the Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, and a Ulster Unionist Party delegation led by the party leader, Mr David Trimble. "I think it is an indication of the state of the situation in the six counties that it has taken all of this time for such a meeting to take place.
"But I welcome it and I am sure that the range of opinion which the unionists are consulting with. . . are telling unionists they should be in those talks around the table representing their particular view. . . That's what they are telling us and I'm sure that's what they are telling the unionists."
He said he believed the UUP would be at the talks, although he did not know what form their presence would take.
Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, arrived in New York today for a five day visit At a press conference at JFK airport in New York, Mr Adams told reporters that one of the purposes of his trip was to campaign for a united Ireland. "A united Ireland is not only possible, but it is going to become a reality," he said.
During the five-day visit, the Sinn Fein delegation expects to raise $0.5 million with the help of its sister organisation, Friends of Sinn Fein.