DENVER, June 21: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, intent on salvaging a faltering peace process in Northern Ireland, appealed on Friday for pressure from the United States on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to abandon violence.

Angry and frustrated by the IRA's murder of two police officers in Northern Ireland earlier this week, Blair is making Northern Ireland the main issue in separate discussions with President Clinton at the Denver Summit of the Eight on Saturday.

In a brief television interview before the summit's opening banquet, Blair said, ``Whatever support they (IRA) thought they used to get in the US, I think there has been a real change in the atmosphere here, with people believing that at the very point in time when the British government was doing everything it could to move this peace process along, they (IRA) were engaged in these brutal and callous murders.''

He had conveyed the same message earlier in the day during a stopover in New York.

Blair, elected on May 1, resumed official contact with Sinn Fein, ally of the IRA, with the hope of obtaining a cease-fire. The last time the IRA had called for a cease-fire was in 1994 and it lasted for 17 months.

Britain, supported by the Irish government, has refused to let Sinn Fein participate in the multi-party talks on the future of Northern Ireland.

In Belfast, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams repeated his contention that his party has a right to be in the talks regardless of the IRA activities. ``We stand for a peace strategy, we stand on a position of dialogue as a means of resolving conflicts. So our opponents here have seized, in a rather ghoulish way, upon those killings to try and demonize Sinn Fein, to try and send on a guilt trip those who support our party. That won't wash.''

British officials said Blair hoped to discuss Northern Ireland with Clinton during breaks in the meetings of all eight leaders.

Clinton, who had invited Adams to the White House as part of the diplomacy leading to the 1994 cease-fire, has condemned the murder of the two police officers on Monday in Lurgan, Northern Ireland.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.