President Clinton has compared the unionist and nationalist parties in Northern Ireland to "a couple of drunks". Reaction was swift and strong but a White House source said "no offence" was intended. His comments appear to be a sign of his increasing frustration over the impasse in the peace process.
Last night, Mr Clinton apologised for the comment.
"Earlier today, in the discussion of the Irish peace process, I used a metaphor that was inappropriate," he said in a statement read by his press secretary, Mr Joe Lockhart. "I want to express my regret for any offence my remarks caused."
Mr Clinton, who was opening a new US embassy in Canada, cited Ireland as one of the troubled areas of the world where he has been trying to make peace between different religious and ethnic groups.
"I spent an enormous amount of time trying to help the people in the land of my forebears, in Northern Ireland, get over 600 years of religious fights," Mr Clinton told several hundred people at the embassy ceremony. "And every time they make an agreement to do it, they're like a couple of drunks walking out of the bar for the last time. When they get to the swinging door, they turn right around and go back in and say, `I just can't quite get there'. "
The Democratic Unionist Party leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, called on Mr Clinton to withdraw his remarks.
"I would like to repudiate the insult that he bestowed on the people of Northern Ireland . . . Maybe the people from Ulster he associates with like too much drink but the ordinary decent and long-suffering people of Northern Ireland will see Bill Clinton for the fraud that he is. He has never really cared for the people of Northern Ireland. He is patronising and he is in no position to hand out any advice on morality to anyone."
Comparing the present situation to a "couple of drunks" is a heightening of the language which Mr Clinton has been using to describe the impasse in the peace process. Last August, at a fundraising function for Northern Ireland, he said the two communities there were like "two kids standing on a big old diving board, holding hands . . . and daring each other to go first".
In July, when talks broke down, Mr Clinton said "the idea that this whole thing could fall apart over an argument about who goes first sounds more reminiscent of something that might happen to these young people in their school careers six or seven years earlier in their lives".
Whatever the image used, it is clear the President finds the impasse in the peace process extremely frustrating. Following the Belfast Agreement last year, Mr Clinton frequently cited it as an example of a successful peacemaking effort by himself.
The SDLP said it could well understand the frustration betrayed in Mr Clinton's remark. An Assembly member for the party, Mr Sean Farren, said: "Despite the manner of the remarks, they underline the frustration and impatience which exist in the United States and elsewhere. In making them, Mr Clinton has emphasised the need for all the pro-agreement parties to be aware of the extent to which the international community has invested time, effort and personnel in the peace process here.
"I can well understand Mr Clinton's frustration. While the manner in which he expressed it might be described as whimsical, the message itself has been received."