The US does not intend to take any immediate measures against Sinn Fein as a result of the recent arrest of three Irishmen in Colombia.
But briefing journalists yesterday on his visit last week to Ireland, the US special representative for Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, said there would be "consequences" unless the links between the IRA and the FARC guerillas in Colombia were severed immediately and irrevocably.
Mr Haass said he remained hopeful that, within days, sufficient moves would be made in the peace process to allow a breakthrough and prevent the suspension of the institutions next weekend.
The authorities in Colombia said they had fresh evidence of contacts between the IRA and the FARC guerrillas, according to a report in today's Financial Times. Following last month's arrest of three suspected members of the IRA on suspicion of providing weapons training to the rebels, army chiefs in Bogota said two more suspected IRA members had visited the area held by the guerrillas, one of three Colombian groups on the US administration's list of designated terrorist organisations.
Asked in Washington last night about what the three arrested Irishmen were doing in Colombia, Mr Haass said: "They were not there for their vacations, they were not there for an exchange of views on negotiation techniques in the peace process, but for discussions with FARC on matters that come under the rubric of terrorism."
Mr Haass said the US administration viewed those associations and the failure of the IRA to decommission as deeply troubling. Decommissioning was not only part of the peace process, he said, but "central" to it and "no single act would have greater impact on the other actors in Northern Ireland than a single act of decommissioning".
Mr Haass insisted the critical issue was the possibility of a breakthrough in the peace process this week.
