Nelson Mandela met Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams today and said the continued failure to secure peace in the North was an indictment of all the parties involved in the conflict.
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Mr Adams said he was seeking advice from the former South African president, who fought to end apartheid in his country.
"The fact that there is no peace in Northern Ireland is an indictment on all the leaders there", Mr Mandela, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who stepped down as president in 1999, told reporters after talks with Mr Adams in Johannesburg.
Mr Mandela, who spent nearly three decades as a political prisoner, hailed Sinn Féin as an old friend and ally .
But he challenged politicians to work towards a peaceful, South African-style political settlement, in the North.
"They must emulate our example. We made peace here with our enemies", Mr Mandela said
Mr Adams told students later that he was confident of securing a lasting peace.
"I am convinced that we will get to where were want to get and we'll reach a democratic agreement", he told students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Mr Adams acknowledged that decommissioning was a vexed issue, but added that while IRA weapons had been silenced, others have not.
He said his party was "very committed" to the decommissioning of arms.
"We are very committed to taking guns out of Irish politics," Mr Adams said