Keep up peace work, Canadian premier tells Adams
Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien has urged Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams to continue promoting the Northern Ireland peace process.
Chretien and Adams met privately in Ottawa yesterday for about half an hour to discuss progress towards peace.
"I’m going to encourage him to continue on the path he has taken lately, when he was an instrument to persuade people to give up their arms," Chretien said before the meeting.
Last week the IRA announced an historic decision to begin getting rid of its weapons and international disarmament officials confirmed a large number of weapons had been destroyed.
Adams said he thanked Chretien for his support of the peace process.
"We discussed a range of issues," Adams said, calling Chretien "a very good friend of peace in Ireland".
"It was a good meeting," he said.
Adams was in Canada to oversee the opening of Friends of Sinn Fein, a group that will raise money for the political party.
Sinn Fein is the political wing of the IRA, which the Canadian Security Intelligence Service describes as a terrorist group on its website.
Adams told reporters before meeting Chretien that he did not consider the IRA a terrorist group.
"Consider what has changed in the last 10 or 11 years. There is a peace process, things have happened that were never imagined," Adams said.
He said he thought Canadians would support Friends of Sinn Fein because of close links between the two countries.
