Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has said that the Bush administration is hampering the North's peace process by restricting his party's ability to raise funds in the US despite last year's IRA decommissioning.
Mr Adams has been invited to the White House on Friday, a warmer reception than he got last year for St Patrick's Day, when the Bush administration refused to meet with him or any of the North's party leaders in addition to cutting off Sinn Féin's fundraising privileges in the US.
Yesterday, Mr Adams criticised the Bush administration for maintaining the sanctions.
"Not only does this go against the principles of equality and inclusion that are at the heart of the peace process, it is being used by those opposed to the Good Friday Agreement".
"It's quite remarkable, I don't understand why this restriction is being put on me. I've been invaluable to the White House, and I don't understand why I can't walk around the corner and go into a restaurant," Adams said at a press conference, referring to a fundraising event planned in Washington tomorrow.
"I'm surprised and bewildered as to the rationale and the purpose" of the fundraising ban, Mr Adams told journalists. "The issue is that the administration has chosen to treat Sinn Féin differently than it treats the other parties, and the peace process is based upon equality, and based upon inclusivity," he said.
"And I find it quite remarkable, given the huge advances that have been made by Irish republicans in Ireland last year and the IRA putting its weapons beyond use," he added.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton lifted fundraising restrictions on Sinn Féin and invited Adams to the White House for St. Patrick's celebrations, a policy continued annually under Bush until last year.
A leading Irish-American congressman said yesterday that the Bush administration does not intend to lift the fundraising ban.
James Walsh, chair of the Friends of Ireland congressional group, said: "It's true, though there hasn't been an official statement yet. What they decided to do was invite Adams to the White House, but they're not lifting the fundraising ban.
Mr Walsh, a New York Republican, strongly criticised the decision, saying it effectively punishes Sinn Féin for the IRA's pledge last year to decommission its weapons, announced by Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness, chief negotiator for Sinn Féin.
"What is absolutely bizarre about the decision is that Adams and McGuinness have delivered. They got a complete cessation, a complete decommissioning. The IRA stood down. To punish them for it makes no sense at all," Mr Walsh said in Washington.
AP