Sinn Féin leader Mr Gerry Adams said he was encouraged by the recent attention President George Bush has paid to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
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Mr Adams said in Seattle last night that he looks forward to the day when peace is so well rooted there that the "boredom of normality" prevails.
"The president obviously has lots of other issues to focus his attention on," Mr Adams said. "But this White House administration is focused on assisting in whatever way it can".
Mr Adams met Mr Bush in Washington on Wednesday. "We have a long way to go in the peace process back home," he said. "It's much short of what Irish republicans want. It's short, I'm sure, of what others want".
But he said: "I think it has largely worked. Had I come 10 years ago and outlined what is happening in Ireland, people would have been incredulous. No human problem is intractable".
Mr Bush, who devoted little attention to Northern Ireland in the first year of his presidency, held four meetings with Irish leaders on Wednesday.
"The style between this administration and the last administration is different, but the Clinton administration needed to do more because it came in before there was a peace accord," Mr Adams said.
Mr Adams spoke at a World Affairs Council luncheon before going to San Francisco to conclude his week-long tour of the US. He planned to return to Belfast this weekend, making Sunday the first St Patrick's Day he has spent in Northern Ireland since 1994.
AP