Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said in New York yesterday he was disappointed President Bush decided not to invite the Irish parties to the White House, but he did not interpret this as a movement away from the peace process by the administration.
Speaking at a breakfast event at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr Adams said Sinn Féin wanted to bring an end to the IRA and would succeed.
He admitted this was a defining moment for the peace process and that Sinn Féin was being "beat up on" over recent events.
"In any ball game you don't have possession of the ball for the whole game," he said. "We have lost the ball but we intend to get it back."
Even though President Bill Clinton "ran a better gig", the symbolic importance of Irish leaders being at White House receptions could not be gainsaid, he stated. But the peace process would not be worked out in the White House or in the Foreign Relations Committee or anywhere else except back on the island of Ireland, he added.
Mr Adams was hosted by Richard Haass, president of the council and former special envoy to Northern Ireland, and was joined at the top table by former ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, whose brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, has refused to meet Mr Adams in Washington in protest at recent IRA activities.
A question and answer session with council members reflected an impatience with the continued existence of the IRA as an impediment to the peace process. When Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of US News & World Report, asked what would be the advantage in achieving peace of a Sinn Féin leader also being a top IRA member, Mr Adams replied, "none whatsoever".
Afterwards, Mr Haass told reporters that it was simply inappropriate in 2005 for a private army to exist in a European country. People were frustrated, he said. In the post-9/11 United States, it was simply unacceptable. "This is a test for Adams and the clock is running," he added.
The exclusion of Mr Adams from the White House was a strategic warning, an important signal that the IRA behaviour would not be tolerated.
"Gerry Adams does not want to become like Yasser Arafat. He will have to choose between the olive branch and the gun," said Mr Haass. He did not think the danger was there yet that Mr Adams would suffer the fate of Mr Arafat in becoming persona non grata in the US, but "patience in the US is not unlimited".