Sinn Fein leader Mr Gerry Adams arrived in Johannesburg today and said South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy should serve as an example for Northern Ireland.
It is Mr Adams's third visit to South Africa, and he has often compared the experience of the country's blacks to the Catholics in Northern Ireland.
"We have a duty to listen and try to replicate what you have done here, back home in Ireland," Mr Adams said.
He called the formation of a democratic South Africa "one of the greatest human achievements of the last century".
Mr Adams said he would brief former president Mr Nelson Mandela on recent events in Northern Ireland during his visit.
He is also to unveil a plaque in memory of IRA hunger-strikers on Robben Island, the apartheid-era prison that was Mr Mandela's home for three decades. The ANC is a long-standing supporter of Sinn Féin.
AP
