DUBLIN, Ireland – Sinn Fein (search) leader Gerry Adams (search) said Monday he was disappointed President Bush did not invite him to the White House for St. Patrick's Day, but he still believed the United States was committed to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Adams, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (search), was asked whether he believed it was a snub for Bush to not invite him for the first time since 1995. He said it was a symbolic "disappointment" but he was not overly worried.
"Do I interpret that as a movement by this administration away from the peace process? No, I don't," Adams said.
"This will not be worked out in the White House ... This will be not worked out anywhere else except back on the island of Ireland."
Still, he said, Sinn Fein and others who want peace in Northern Ireland (search) must have the "broad support" of the United States.
"I think our record speaks for itself," he said. "There was conflict there is no longer a conflict. It isn't a perfect peace, but it is a peace process."
Adams, head of the political party affiliated with the Irish Republican Army (search), is visiting the United States this weekend to seek support from Irish-American activists. His visit comes amid outrage over IRA involvement in the killing of a Catholic man outside a pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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