US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threw America's weight Sunday behind efforts to stop Northern Ireland slipping back towards conflict, as a paramilitary group ended its decades-old armed struggle.
Clinton, who is to make a major speech in Belfast on Monday, said the men of violence were history and vowed US political support for the British province's leaders, and US investment for its economy.
"Clearly there are questions and some apprehensions," she said, referring to a political standoff in Belfast which is threatening the power-sharing government which took office there in 2007.
"But I believe that due to the concerted effort of the British government, the Irish government, the support of friends like us in the United States, that the parties understand that this is a step they must take together," she said.
Clinton's visit comes amid concerted efforts to defuse a simmering stand-off between Northern Ireland's leaders over the transfer of police and justice powers from London to Belfast.
First Minister Peter Robinson's pro-London Democratic Unionists (DUP) and his deputy Martin McGuinness's Republican Sinn Fein agree in principle on the transfer of responsibility, but disagree over the timing.
The power-sharing administration took office in Belfast in May 2007 after a landmark accord between the DUP and Sinn Fein, long fierce rivals.
In addition to the political row, fears of fresh violence have grown since two British soldiers and a policeman were killed in March, in attacks claimed by the Real IRA and another dissident republican group, the Continuity IRA.
In a move apparently timed to coincide with Clinton's visit, a Republican group responsible for dozens of murders during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland announced it was laying down its arms.
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) whose most high-profile attack was the 1979 killing of Airey Neave, an aide to Margaret Thatcher, said "the armed struggle is over.
"The objective of a 32-county socialist republic (uniting Ireland) will be best achieved through exclusively peaceful political struggle," said a spokesman for the INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party.
As well as political help on justice and policing, Clinton also pledged US economic help.
She noted that the US administration has appointed Declan Kelly as a special economic envoy to show it is serious about maintaining the US support evidenced since 1993, when she was first lady.
The appointment is "a very tangible signal that we want to invest in the peace dividends that will come with the final devolution of power and authority" to Northern Ireland, Clinton said.
"I will certainly provide as much encouragement and support as I can," she said after talks in Dublin with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.
In London earlier Clinton stressed the need to fully implement the peace process started by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland which killed at least 3,500 people.
"To me terrorism is terrorism. Those who would try to disrupt the peace of people going about their daily lives are out of step and out of time," she told reporters after talks in London with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
Clinton's husband was heavily involved in the Northern Ireland peace process during his presidency. US envoy George Mitchell helped broker the Good Friday accord, alongside then British and Irish leaders Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.
Referring to her speech Monday in Belfast's Stormont Castle seat of government, Clinton said: "I will have distinct honour of speaking at stormont tomorrow.
"I will certainly provide as much encouragement and support as I can."
