Clinton arrives in Ireland at start of three-day visit

With Clinton aboard Air Force One were wife Hillary, recently elected to the U.S. senate, and daughter Chelsea. On the first day of his visit, Clinton will meet Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Irish President Mary McAleese, travelling on to the border town of Dundalk in County Louth where he will make a public address on Tuesday afternoon.

Hillary Clinton will meet women members of the Irish Parliament on Tuesday. On Wednesday Clinton is to spend the day in Belfast where he will hold talks with all Northern Irish politicians backing the peace agreement. It is the third visit by Clinton to the troubled British province, in which he has taken a special interest.

On Thursday he will meet Queen Elizabeth in London, before making a foreign policy address at Warwick University, returning to the U.S. the same day. Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson was upbeat about the visit, saying he hoped Clinton would "focus everyone on the fundamentals of the situation".

"President Clinton has never pretended that he had a magic wand to wave over this process but he has always been helpful," Mandelson said. Northern Ireland's First Minister David Trimble met British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Monday evening. Blair's spokesman said that the meeting was "a matter of course" to discuss Clinton's visit.

Earlier Trimble repeated a call for Clinton to help shift Catholic republican and Protestant loyalist paramilitaries from their "intransigent positions" on starting a weapons decommissioning process.

(la/dpa)