Clinton urges Northern Ireland to finish peace push

By Jeff Mason and Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Northern Ireland on Monday to push forward with the final steps in its peace process, lending diplomatic muscle to a cause long supported by Washington and her own family.

Clinton, whose husband, former President Bill Clinton, helped broker a deal that ended decades of violence here, said President Barack Obama's administration would do all it could to support the process going forward.

"I'm here today to send a strong message that the Obama administration and the United States are committed to supporting you as you continue your journey," Clinton said after meeting with the top two leaders in Belfast.

Clinton's trip comes just one week after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew into the province to try to inject fresh momentum into the peace process.

While Northern Ireland enjoys relative peace since a 1998 deal ended the Irish Republican Army's military campaign against British rule, tricky political problems remain.

Relations between the two governing parties in Belfast are brittle amid disagreement over when the administration should be given power over policing and justice.

Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of the Stormont Assembly of the pro-Ireland Sinn Fein party, wanted the authority in Belfast's hands months ago but First Minister Peter Robinson of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party is holding out for a deal on funding.

Clinton met with McGuinness and Robinson prior to a planned speech before the Stormont Assembly -- a rare address by a foreign dignitary.

Relations between McGuinness, a former IRA commander, and Robinson have deteriorated sharply, with Sinn Fein suspicious that Robinson is stalling to placate hardliners within his

Some factions in the DUP still oppose sharing power with their former enemies.

Dissident republican groups have been tapping into a sense of disillusionment in some nationalist areas with the Real IRA killing two British soldiers in March and increasing attacks on police officers.

Last month, police made safe a bomb containing 600 lb (270 kg) of homemade explosives, bigger than the device which killed 29 people in Omagh in 1998, the deadliest single incident of Northern Ireland's "Troubles." Dissident republicans were suspected of building the bomb uncovered last month.

More than 3.600 people were killed in violence between the late 1960s and the 1998 Good Friday peace deal.

As First Lady, Hillary Clinton gave a lot of support to pro-peace women's groups in Northern Ireland and visited patients injured in the Omagh bombing.

(additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins; editing by Michael Roddy)

Source : www.reuters.com