The former South African president, Mr F W de Klerk today cited the example of South Africa as a way forward to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
Mr de Klerk was giving a speech at the Glencree Reconciliation Centre in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow.
The former president said that "reaching agreements to end conflicts is only the beginning of the process. The challenge then becomes to ensure that conflicts do not flare up again, that newly established relationships are placed on firm foundations, and that agreements are honoured".
He said in order to achieve this there are a number of basic requirements: forgiveness, meaningful reconciliation, the acceptance of basic rules of behaviour and guidelines for the maintenance of peace and that justice is seen to be equal to all and deemed to be fair.
He also said that it was necessary for South Africans to create Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) "to determine the ‘truth’ about the conflict of our past as a necessary precursor to forgiveness and reconciliation".
"However, we discovered that the search for the truth could itself be highly divisive and could lead to alienation rather than reconciliation," said Mr De Klerk.
"The TRC did, indeed, succeed in uncovering some of the truth about our past conflict. However, at the end of the day the ‘truth’ that it presented was the truth of only one of the parties – primarily because the other two main parties the conflict – the old National Party and the IFP of Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi – were not included in the process. It was as though an all-Protestant or all-Catholic commission were to try to write the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland," he added.