Mrs Hillary Clinton has told Northern Ireland that the world is watching to see if it can secure peace after decades of conflict. She appealed to all sides to make the necessary compromises.
Optimism swept across Belfast yesterday as the US First Lady arrived on a one-day visit.
Although it was much more low-key than her previous preChristmas trip with President Clinton two years ago, there was a festive atmosphere in the city.
Her first engagement was at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Co Antrim, where she delivered a lecture in memory of the Belfast community worker, Mrs Joyce McCartan, who died last year aged 67 and who lost 18 relatives during the Troubles.
The two women had enjoyed a cup of tea at a drop-in centre on the Ormeau Road during the Clintons' last visit. The US First Lady told an audience of about 1,000 people that Mrs McCartan and all the brave women who had marched, cried, shouted and demanded peace for over 20 years deserved to be heard.
To her audience's delight, she produced the stainless steel teapot that the Belfast woman had given her. She said she used it every day in her second-floor private kitchen in the White House, and had brought it back as a symbol of hope.
"I don't know whether a Catholic or a Protestant made this teapot. I don't know whether a Catholic or a Protestant sold this teapot. I only know that this teapot serves me very well, and it stands for all those conversations around those thousands of kitchen tables where mothers and fathers look at one another with despair, because they cannot imagine the future will be any better for their children.
"But this teapot also is on the kitchen table where mothers and fathers can look at one another and say: `We have to do better. We cannot permit this to go on. We have to take a stand for our children'."
Mrs Clinton acknowledged that wounds were still raw and that there were many obstacles in the way of peace. However, she stressed that the world was watching Northern Ireland to see whether there would be an end to "a generation of senseless killing".
In a message to the politicians, she said: "When the people want peace, it is the obligation of political leaders to find the common ground where it can thrive. That requires compromise and reconciliation.
"That involves postponing or even giving up one's cherished ideals in the belief that others will do the same to end the conflict."
The US would continue to play its part in support of the peace process, she said.
Mrs Clinton's second and final engagement was at a youth conference in the Waterfront Hall, where she received a standing ovation.