MR GERRY ADAMS yesterday explained Sinn Fein's refusal to endorse the report of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation by saying the party "should not be asked to abandon core positions before negotiations even begin."
The Sinn Fein leader said "I certainly think that, tactically, it would be a major mistake to concede to the British and the unionists on all that ground, even before negotiations begin."
`Mr Adams left the United States for home last night at the end of a five day trip that took him to Washington DC and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In Pittsburgh, the Mayor, Mr Thomas Murphy and the full city council hosted a fund raising breakfast yesterday for Friends of Sinn Fein. The $100 a plate event attracted more than 200 guests. On Saturday several hundred turned up at a $25 a head rally in the Pittsburgh David L. Lawrence Convention Centre, making an estimated total of more than $20,000.
In a speech at the convention centre, Mr Adams said the drive for peace in Northern Ireland would not be "capsized by British intransigence."
"All the players are saying that the pursuit of peace will continue, that it is bigger than any personality, and that a historic moment can't be capsized by a domestic squabble."
A US Democratic Congressman, Mr Bill Coyne, praised Mr Adams for bringing peace with justice to Northern Ireland. His rival for Congress, council member Mr Dan Cohen, brought roars when he denounced "the occupying for of the British government".
Mr Tim Flaherty, Pittsburgh's chief financial officer, criticised the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, which he said had depicted Mr Adams as a terrorist "the same as Sadat was, the same as Mandela was, and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and George Washington."
Mr Adams said "I'm not here to get money for guns, but I'm asking for investment to help our economy." He added that economic revival in Northern Ireland should be a key topic during all party talks, and that Sinn Fein was trying to entice large American companies to relocate operations in Northern Ireland.
Among these is a Pennsylvania electric company which may set up a subsidiary in north or west Belfast. Sinn Fein economics spokesman Mr Mairtin O Muilleoir said the party wished to develop stronger cultural links with Pittsburgh.
Mr Adams, who met President Clinton on Thursday, told US reporters in Washington on Friday "If the President had listened to the British there would not have been a peace process." He was commenting on London's efforts to persuade the White House that elections were necessary before all party talks.
Looking to the future, Mr Adams warned that "the danger point comes when we in the republican leadership become discredited by the process".
Asked about claims that INLA leader, Gino Gallagher, had been shot by the IRA, Mr Adams said such reports were "highly sinister and dangerous". He said he had no evidence the INLA was trying to recruit from the IRA.