Peace delivering real progress: Hillary Clinton

Northern Ireland has made remarkable progress since the ceasefires but peace will not be fully achieved until it happens at the interfaces, Hillary Clinton has stated as she prepares to leave office as US Secretary of State.

“We have to do more to get out of the ballrooms, out of Stormont, into the communities where people live, where there yet is not that sense of lasting hope and optimism,” Clinton told political and community leaders in Belfast.

Clinton’s visit in November came 17 years after her first arrival, as First Lady.  In a scene that would have been impossible at that time, David Trimble, John Hume, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams joined the Secretary of State at a reception in the Titanic Belfast building, hosted by the Ireland Funds.  The contribution of Senator George Mitchell was also acknowledged.

In 1995, she told journalists, there were “glimmerings that there might be some path forward toward peace.” The work of peace was “not complete” and required “sacrifice and compromise and vigilance day after day.”  Clinton added: “There will always be disagreements in democratic societies. We’re experts at that in the United States. We have a lot of very serious, difficult disagreements that divide us but violence is never an acceptable response to those disagreements.”

She pledged her continued support and looked forward to coming back.  Before departing from Aldergrove, Clinton personally thanked staff from the US Consulate-General, saying: “It’s been a real honour serving with you.”

President Obama is expected to nominate Susan Rice, the current US Ambassador to the United Nations, as his next Secretary of State with the appointment to take effect on 20 January.  The President is due to visit Northern Ireland for the G8 summit at Lough Erne on 17-18 June next year.