ANKARA
The U.K.’s Prince Charles met Tuesday Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, the first meeting in Republic of Ireland between a royal family member and the head of the party.
The meeting came on the first day of Prince Charles’ four-day Ireland visit. Adams participated in the reception to greet the prince at National University of Ireland Galway.
Adams told the journalists before the meeting that he hoped it would help the “reconciliation process”.
Sinn Fein is known to be affiliated with the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
During his trip to Ireland, Prince Charles is planned to visit the Mullaghmore village, where his uncle Louis Mountbatten was killed in 1979 in an IRA bomb attack.
Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 2011 since it declared its independence from Britain almost a century ago.
Sinn Fein is a political party active in the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.
The group won the second highest number of votes in Northern Ireland, after Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), in the 2015 U.K. general election.
IRA has fought for decades for a united Ireland.
The U.K., Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland signed the “Good Friday Agreement” on April 1998, giving Northern Irish authorities more powers and expanding the cultural rights of Northern Irish people.
