LONDON, Nov. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), said Sunday he "regrets" the Birmingham pub bombings which killed 21 people 30 years ago.

    "I certainly regret what happened and I make no bones about that," Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said on the 30th anniversary of the bombs.

    His remarks came at a sensitive time for the long-term deadlocked peace process in Northern Ireland, with Britain and Ireland keeping efforts to break the ice and revive the power-sharing self-rule government in the Britain-ruled province.

    Asked whether the IRA should apologize, Adams pointed to a statement the IRA made two years ago when it apologized to all civilians killed and injured.

    "My recollection very clearly is that the IRA apologized for all the actions it engaged in in which civilians were hurt or injured," he was quoted by a BBC report as saying.

    "I think the best thing is for us to make sure that these awfulevents never happen again," he said.

    The bombings, which destroyed two crowded bars in Birmingham on November 21, 1974, were blamed on the IRA and led to reprisal attacks on the city's large Irish community.

    Six Irish men were then convicted in 1975 of carrying out the attacks. However, in 1991, Britain's Appeal Court quashed their convictions, bringing to an end one of Britain's most infamous miscarriages of justice.

    Northern Ireland has been plagued by three decades of politicaland sectarian violence between Protestants committed to keeping the union with Britain and Catholics who want to end it and unite with the Irish Republic. Enditem