Senator Edward Kennedy yesterday reversed course and joined President Bush in refusing to meet Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams on his trip to the United States this week.
Mr Kennedy had scheduled a meeting with Mr Adams on March 17th on Capitol Hill for a briefing on events in Northern Ireland. His spokeswoman, Melissa Wagoner, said that "Senator Kennedy has decided to decline to meet with Gerry Adams, given the IRA's ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law."
However, Mr Bush's envoy to the peace process, Mitchell Reiss, confirmed to The Irish Times last night that he would meet Mr Adams at the State Department in Washington on Wednesday. "We need to have a conversation," Mr Reiss said. "We need to listen and hear from him what he thinks the situation requires to move forward with the peace process."
Mr Reiss also discounted a quotation from a Bush aide in the Sunday Telegraph that "at the White House, Adams is now regarded with the same sort of disdain as Arafat" and that the president "no longer considers Mr Adams a reliable partner for peace."
"People need to be very wary of these quotations attributed to the president," said Mr Reiss. "I've never heard him say that."
The key question facing Mr Adams in Washington will be whether he is willing and able to make the break with the IRA in the near future, sources said. Mr Adams began a week-long tour of the US in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday where he reiterated that "we in Sinn Féin want to see the IRA ceasing to be," and that "I do think we'll see the day when there is no IRA".
He said he was disappointed but not offended that he was not invited to meet Mr Bush. He told about 100 Irish-American supporters in a Cincinnati hotel that the recent murder of Robert McCartney, purportedly by elements of the IRA, was a "heinous, disgraceful act", according to a Reuters report, and that Sinn Féin stood firmly in support of the family of the victim.
Mr Adams took issue with the notion that Sinn Féin was losing popularity with many of its former backers and said Friday's byelection result showed that the party was actually gaining support.
The cancellation of his meeting with Mr Kennedy is a major setback for Mr Adams.
The Massachusetts senator intervened with President Bill Clinton 10 years ago to grant Mr Adams a US visa and permission to fundraise in the United States.
Mr Kennedy's spokeswoman told the Boston Herald "the IRA murder of Robert McCartney and subsequent calls for vigilante justice underscore the need for IRA violence and criminality to stop and for Sinn Féin to co-operate with the police service of Northern Ireland."
Mr Kennedy and other Congressional leaders will meet Mr McCartney's sisters and partner instead.
Today Mr Adams will be in New York where he will attend a briefing at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The New York Times on Saturday said the disbanding of the IRA was not likely any time soon but the IRA must take some strong initial steps, "starting with shedding its activities as a criminal enterprise."