A spokesman for House speaker Dennis Hastert confirmed yesterday that Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams will not be invited to the traditional St Patrick's Day lunch on Capitol Hill.
"Gerry Adams is not going to be attending," the spokesman said, while declining to say if other Northern party leaders would be invited, as has been the case for the last 10 years.
However, the Republican speaker is expected to take his cue from the White House, which has excluded all Northern party leaders from its annual St Patrick's Day reception.
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has cancelled plans to visit Washington, where he was scheduled to address the National Press Club. "It's my understanding he's not coming," said UUP spokeswoman Anne Smith in Washington, adding: "It really is unfair to punish the democratic parties" because of Sinn Féin.
The DUP is also avoiding Washington this year but Mr Adams and SDLP leader Mark Durkan are planning to be in town for St Patrick's Day.
President Bush may greet one or more of the sisters of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney as a sign of US disenchantment with the IRA and Sinn Féin.
"We can't say whether or not they have been invited," a White House spokesman said, but the sisters revealed two days ago they had received an invitation to meet Mr Bush when in Washington to call attention to their cause for justice.
Two children from an integrated school in Carrickfergus will represent the Northern Ireland communities at the White House reception.
Republican congressman James Walsh, chairman of the Friends of Ireland in Congress, said he thought Mr Hastert was right to exclude Mr Adams and possibly other Northern leaders from the lunch on March 16th, after the president made the decision not to invite them to the White House.
It was disappointing but it showed unanimity, he said. "I would love to see them at the speaker's luncheon, it's been a grand tradition, but it would be ignoring the fact that there's been a major breakdown in the process."
Mr Walsh cited the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, the murder of Mr McCartney and what he called earlier inflammatory comments by DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley for the breakdown in negotiations.
"Hopefully, this will give people there a sense of how seriously it's being taken by the United States," he said.