Sceptical US officials await confirmation that IRA ceasefire is genuine

American patience with Sinn Fein and the IRA over the past 18 months since the first ceasefire was ended had worn very thin

American patience with Sinn Fein and the IRA over the past 18 months since the first ceasefire was ended had worn very thin. There was an increasing realisation that the continual calls by President Clinton for a renewed ceasefire were having little or no effect.

So while the appeal of the Sinn Fein leaders for a ceasefire has been warmly welcomed there will also be some scepticism about how genuine a new one would be. The breaking of the first one was a huge shock for the President and his aides who had worked so hard to bring Sinn Fein in from the cold - often against British government wishes - through giving a visa to Mr Gerry Adams while the IRA was still carrying out violent acts.

So for the past 18 months, the US attitude has been very low key, and questions about "a new US initiative" were impatiently brushed aside. Officials insisted the US did not see its role as interventionist or as that of "mediator" or "guarantor" but rather as "supporting the efforts of the British and Irish governments".

Behind the scenes, the National Security staff at the White House kept contact with the main political parties in Northern Ireland and urged compromise and flexibility at appropriate times but without much confidence that they would be heeded. Following President Clinton's re-election, a new team had replaced the experienced Tony Lake and Nancy Soderberg who had built up considerable expertise on the Northern Ireland peace process as it climaxed in the August 1994 IRA ceasefire.

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The new team of Sandy Berger and Jim Steinberg have given Northern Ireland special attention knowing that the President is still hoping that a lasting peace is achievable and that his triumphant visit to Belfast and Derry in 1995 was a highlight of his first term. But the reality has been that the refusal of Sinn Fein/IRA to heed Mr Clinton's continual appeals for an end to violence was allowing a mood of disillusionment, if not cynicism, to set in Washington.

The shooting of two RUC officers in Lurgan at a time when the new Labour government was leaning over backwards to bring Sinn Fein into the peace talks "appalled" President Clinton. Even those Congressmen most sympathetic to Sinn Fein came close to despair.

Officials here say that those outside the US over-estimate the amount of influence Washington can exercise on the Northern Ireland parties on both sides of the divide. "What do people think we can do? Make threats? Offer rewards?" asked one official with some exasperation.

For the past 18 months, every contact that senior US officials have had with Sinn Fein has included "a very strong insistence that they (IRA) end the violence and declare a ceasefire instantaneously". But seeing that nothing happened during that time, "how can anyone posit the notion that we have extensive influence, even with the republican community?" one official asked.

Nevertheless, the election of Mr Tony Blair as British Prime Minister brought a warmer relationship between Washington and London, and he has had several meetings with President Clinton mainly devoted to Northern Ireland.

Mr Clinton this week had a 15minute telephone conversation with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, also on Northern Ireland. No details on these meetings have been disclosed but the message to Sinn Fein and the unionists is clear. The White House is backing the efforts of London and Dublin and will not be seen as favouring one side over the other.