Tony Blair
British prime minister

I treated Gerry Adams and the members of Sinn Fein in the same way that I treat any human being.

On October 13, 1997, for the first time in a century of conflict, a British prime minister met with the leader of Sinn Fein-the unofficial political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). As a gesture of support toward the IRA cease-fire and the revived Northern Ireland peace process, Prime Minister Tony Blair met and shook hands with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. On April 10 of the next year-Good Friday-a historic agreement was signed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by leaders of the Irish and British governments, representatives of Sinn Fein and other nationalist parties, and representatives of the major pro-British unionist parties. The Good Friday Agreement promised to restore self-government to Northern Ireland after twenty-four years of British rule, and for the first time to give all of the conflicting factions a voice and a role in the future of Northern Ireland. On December 2, 1999, after eighteen months of delay by the Ulster Unionists, the new Northern Ireland legislature met for the first time. Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble headed a cabinet made up former enemies such as Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and a past IRA commander, and Nigel Dodds, a member of the hard-line Democratic Unionist Party who had been the target of an IRA assassination attack three years before.