Bush Phones Adams, Pushes Power-Sharing

President Bush called Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to try to help revive a Catholic-Protestant power-sharing deal, as the party said it would hold unprecedented talks with Northern Ireland’s police chief.

Bush spoke to Adams, whose party is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, from Air Force One as he flew to Washington from Texas.

Sinn Fein, which has remained hostile to the mainly Protestant police despite reforms since a 1998 peace deal, said a delegation led by Adams would hold its first meeting with Chief Constable Hugh Orde today. Sinn Fein said it would press Orde to scale back the imposing size of the security presence in Catholic heartlands.