The Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has described the Republic as a state which, if it were not for "Catholicism and anti-Britishness", would not "have a reason to exist".
He has also, however, gone some way to withdrawing his description, earlier this year, of the Republic as "pathetic".
Speaking to a meeting of the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times, he said the Republic was held together by the Catholic Church and contempt for Britain. "If you took away the Catholicism and anti-Britishness, the State doesn't have a reason to exist."
However, asked if he stood by the description he offered of the Republic, at an Ulster Unionist Council meeting in March, as "pathetic, mono-ethnic and mono-cultural", he said he had not intended to use the word "pathetic".
He was reading over the script of the speech before he delivered it, he said. "And I said: 'Whoops. We got a wee bit over the top'. So I said to them [press officers] to take that out, but they said: 'It's too late. We've already sent that out to the press'.
"I knew if I tried to send out a revised version, the first thing they'd [the press\] do is look and see what I'd changed.
"But the words I wanted in there were 'mono-ethnic' and 'mono-cultural'. Those are true."
In the immediate aftermath of his March comments - which provoked an outcry among many commentators here - Mr Trimble was adamant they were correct, saying it was "self-evident" the Republic was as he described it.
"That is the reality of the nature of the State and I think people should be aware of that, and should not hide away from it," he said at a press conference some days after the March speech. "Sometimes in politics harsh words are said but that is life. Sometimes we have to hold up a mirror to life."
A reporter with the Chicago Sun-Times said Mr Trimble was in Chicago "where Irish-Americans dominate local government" because he wanted the people "to hear the other side on Northern Ireland".
Mr Trimble was in Washington DC over the weekend and returns to Northern Ireland tomorrow.
At the meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board he also said the British flag could not be flown in the Republic.
"You still can't fly Union Jacks in Ireland. They'll have a special in the stores for European Union items and you'll see the flags of every country in Europe except the Union Jack, which will be littered on the floor."
