President George Bush will meet the First Minister, the Rev Ian Paisley, and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Washington in the first week in December, Stormont sources have confirmed.
Dr Paisley and Mr McGuinness will travel to New York and Washington, culminating in a meeting with Mr Bush in the White House. This will be their first visit together to the US. The trip will seek to strengthen US support for the powersharing Northern Executive, and persuade US businesspeople that "Northern Ireland is a good place in which to invest".
"We have to take advantage of what we have achieved because our novelty value isn't going to last for ever, and it's also fair to say that Ian Paisley won't be in a position to keep flying around the world," a Stormont source added.
A central element of the trip will be to help lay the foundations for the major investment conference scheduled for next May in Belfast.
Mr McGuinness recently visited the US as part of the drive to attract US chief executives to Belfast, while Economy Minister Nigel Dodds will visit the US east coast ahead of the Paisley/McGuinness meeting with Mr Bush.
