Prominent Americans who played a key role in brokering the original IRA ceasefire have said they "believe fully in the validity" of the new ceasefire. They hinted at their belief that the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, would soon be invited to the United States by President Clinton.
The delegation, which included Mr Niall O'Dowd, publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper, Mr Bill Flynn, chief executive of Mutual America, and a businessman, Mr Chuck Feeney, met Mr Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness at Sinn Fein offices in west Belfast yesterday.
After the meeting, which had been requested by Mr Adams and lasted for more than 1 1/2 hours, Mr Flynn said he would "not be surprised" if President Clinton invited the Sinn Fein president to the US, and that the invitation would "come sooner than you might think". Mr O'Dowd said they saw the ceasefire as "a huge development" and "probably the greatest opportunity Northern Ireland will ever have to bring about a peaceful solution".
Referring to the two Sinn Fein leaders, Mr O'Dowd said: "We feel even more that these two gentlemen have worked so hard and so well to make this happen, and we believe fully in the validity of this ceasefire as a result."
Mr Flynn, who recently hosted the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, in the US, and who will meet unionist representatives on this trip, said the group would do everything it could "to support peaceful resolution to the problems in Northern Ireland and that includes loyalists, unionists, republicans and nationalists".
He urged unionists to do everything in their power to sit down at the table and talk, and said he fully expected all parties to find a way to take part in negotiations. "The people of Northern Ireland demand that the parties sit at the table. The people of all of Ireland demand that there be a peaceful resolution, and God help anyone who stands in the way of the will of the people," said Mr Flynn.
He also said that he, and most Americans of Irish heritage, believed Mr Adams was "a man of peace and honour" and that he had "demonstrated that once again".
He hinted he would use his influence to bring more US investment to the North, saying the people of Northern Ireland, and in particular the people of west Belfast, had suffered enormously over the years. "That has to be changed and every American of Irish heritage has an interest in helping out, and as progress is made here, we will see more involvement by corporate America in Northern Ireland," said Mr Flynn.
Mr O'Dowd also praised the role of President Clinton, saying he deserved credit "for a remarkable job on both ceasefires".
Mr Adams said he intended to go to the US, but was "obviously preoccupied" by current events in Ireland. Yesterday's meeting was important in itself and he believed the group "represented the broad thrust of opinion in the US".
The Sinn Fein president said he had requested the meeting "to build on the new situation and to consolidate, and to move the process forward into proper, genuine and substantive negotiations". He said unionists were challenged "in the same ways that I and Sinn Fein are challenged by this situation" and he again urged them to join his party in talks.
He said the two governments had given assurances in a very public way on time-frames and they "would have to stick to that".