Gerry Adams Quotes

The British Government and the Irish Government have accepted very clearly the Mitchell Report.

The Good Friday Agreement and the basic rights and entitlements of citizens that are enshrined within it must be defended and actively promoted by London and Dublin.

We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

Sinn Fein has productively taken the example of South Africa and, as we develop the peace process, we continue to use examples from South Africa.

It... is the best opportunity we've had in the last 25 years to bring about a settlement in Northern Ireland, and I think we should leave no stone unturned to achieve that.

Quite simply, I maintained contact with Sinn Fein and believed that there had to be a political, not a military, solution to the situation in Northern Ireland.

Funnily enough, Northern Ireland is a great example of where politics can win over conflict. The decision to down arms and follow a political path would have been unthinkable once. It shows just what is possible.

The really big challenge is delivering the social justice agenda in the Belfast Agreement, which hasn't been delivered.

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

We now have a political process, we've had a period of parties that have been fighting each other quite literally with bombs and bullets, talking to each other, and having sat together in the assembly and sharing government with each other.

In coming to that agreement, my party had a clear philosophy throughout. In Northern Ireland, we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side.

The big missing part of the jig-saw is to get the assembly back up and running here in Northern Ireland, to get shared government back in business, that is my objective, and we await the IRA statement to see if this will trigger a new dawn.

The basis on which the Good Friday agreement was constructed was in addressing those problems in the history of Northern Ireland, the social and constitutional problems as well as the military problems that have been unaddressed for centuries.

Well I think it has always been a mistake to reduce the peace process in Ireland to a decommissioning process.

There is not a single injustice in Northern Ireland that is worth the loss of a single British soldier or a single Irish citizen either.

Men, once enemies, are now jointly governing in Northern Ireland. And although there have been several hitches, by and large it's working well.

Successfully pressuring armed militants to abandon violence and participate in democratic elections requires a favorable political climate. In Northern Ireland and South Africa, armed militants turned away from violence and entered mainstream politics only when the framework of an acceptable political deal was on the table, providing them with a product they could sell to their supporters. The sequence of events was of crucial importance.

The last thing we want to see, given the success of the peace process, is the return of installations along the Irish border.

Only the political process offers the real prospect of a united Ireland at peace with itself.

I think we have a political and moral duty to do everything within our power to maintain the Good Friday Agreement.

I believe however that peace is attainable regardless of the Arabs mentality, society or government.

Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.

As they say, one thing led to another, and, ultimately, the British and Irish governments asked me to serve as chairman of the peace negotiations, which ironically began six years ago this week.

Israel desperately needs peace if it is to come anywhere close to being the 'light unto nations' of Jewish dreams.