Supporters of powersharing in the North were trying to teach the word "Yes" to Democratic Unionist Party leader, the Rev Ian Paisley MP, Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams said yesterday.
It was not a question of whether or not the powersharing executive in the North would be re-established, but when it would be re-established, Mr Adams told an audience of diplomats and politicians at the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan yesterday.
Among those present were former US ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith; former mayor of New York David Dinkins; former Clinton administration official, Nancy Soderberg, now with the International Crisis Group; and former presidential envoy for Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Interviewed by CBS journalist Martha Teichner, Mr Adams reiterated that he regarded the partition of Ireland as "totally immoral". He continued: "The Good Friday Agreement is a bridge out of that."
Asked about possible Sinn Féin participation in policing, he said: "Sinn Féin wants policing." He added: "The Police Service of Northern Ireland has, one could say, moved considerably along the Good Friday Agreement road to a new beginning of policing."
There was a long-standing agreement with the British government that when a number of outstanding issues were addressed, he would go to the leadership of Sinn Féin and ask for a special ardfheis to ask the membership to "allow us to embrace what would be an acceptable policing service".Asked why the IRA would not now disband, Mr Adams said an unnamed "very senior unionist" had told him that, "if the IRA paraded naked on the lawn of Stormont, destroyed all their weapons and committed mass hara-kiri", it would not be acceptable to the DUP.
He also pointed out that there were "very small, almost micro-organisations on the fringes of republicanism" which had been responsible for the Omagh bombing, for example.
"How we have been able to counter those groups is, in the republican heartlands, by debating in a very open way with republican people," he said.
Mr Adams continued: "What is required is that there isn't a vacuum on the republican side."
He said it was not "within my ability to disband the IRA".
The Bush administration has refused permission for Sinn Féin leaders to fundraise during their visits here, although the US-based Friends of Sinn Féin organisation is allowed to do so.
Asked how he felt about that, Mr Adams said he did not think he had "any special entitlement" to fundraise in the US:
"I do think it's a wee bit bizarre because I can fundraise in London" [laughter]. But he added that, "President Bush remains supportive of our process".