NI "an inspiration" says Annan

Kofi Annan delivered speech in Londonderry

The Northern Ireland peace process has been a source of inspiration to the rest of the world, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said.

Peace building around the world was the theme of a speech by Mr Annan at the University of Ulster's Magee College campus in Londonderry on Monday.

It was the first visit to Northern Ireland by a serving UN secretary general.

Mr Annan, who delivered the annual Tip O'Neill lecture, later made reference to the war in Iraq, saying it was dissuading the international community from intervening in the growing crisis in Darfur.

He said the UN Security Council supported the African Union, which is in the process of sending in 4,500 troops into the troubled western Sudanese region.

But, he said, the "international community has been reluctant to send another force to Sudan, another Islamic country."

"There is a feeling in the Arab world that one is going to repeat what has happened in Iraq, regardless of the objectives and intentions," he said.

"There is this sense among the membership that it is best to send in African troops."

During his references to Northern Ireland, Mr Annan said that the efforts of people in the province to create a better world for their children had "been a source of inspiration and hope to many other countries".

Mr Annan said the world could learn lessons about how to manage a transition from violence to peace from the commitment, courage and imagination shown by people in Northern Ireland.

The secretary general said he did not mean to imply that people in Northern Ireland had solved all their problems but it did seem to him that they were managing them better and more hopefully than in the past.

"For some years now, you have been spared the large-scale violence and terror that used to disfigure your beautiful part of the country and seemed to blight its future," he said

The subject of Mr Annan's lecture was how outsiders could best contribute to the process of building peace in war-torn societies.

He said the role of the UN had changed over the years from just keeping the peace to engaging in conflict resolution, tackling the root causes of violence.

The United Nations Security Council

"In the last 15 years or so, the United Nations has developed a considerable body of experience of managing and resolving conflict as well as of peace building but we should acknowledge that our record has been mixed.

"Among the successes I would mention particularly Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, El Salvador, Eastern Slavonia, Guatemala and East Timor."

Mr Annan accepted there had been some failures, namely in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Angola.

"I do not think it coincidental that, in the case of the failures, there was no peace to keep or peace agreements proved fragile because the underlying causes of conflict had not been resolved.

"We have learned useful lessons from both our successes and failures and are doing our best to put those lessons into practice."

Former SDLP leader John Hume holds the Tip O'Neill chair in peace studies at the university, and his status as a Nobel Prize-winner has been credited with attracting a long line of high profile figures to Magee College.

Past speakers have included Senator Hillary Clinton and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

After the lecture, Mr Annan headed to London for talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown.