THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs says it had no information about a stop-off by US vice-president Joe Biden at Shannon airport on Monday night.
A spokesman for the department said it was “conceivable” Mr Biden had visited the airport without informing them as he was scheduled to visit eastern Europe this week. Senior sources at Shannon airport said there was tight security when Air Force Two, the official aircraft of the vice-president, touched down on a refuelling stop shortly after 11pm.
Mr Biden was en route to Sarajevo for the first leg of a tour of the Balkan states. During the one-hour stop, Mr Biden got off the aircraft and visited the airport lounge where he met members of the army national guard from the US State of Georgia. Their aircraft had coincidentally landed at the mid-west airport some 10 minutes before Mr Biden’s aircraft.
Security was said to be tight at Shannon during the stopover with gardaí, armed detectives and the Garda dog unit at the airport from early evening. Over a dozen US secret service agents arrived at Shannon on a C17 Globemaster transporter plane on Sunday to carry out security sweeps.
Former US secretary of state Donald Rumsfeld was accused of “rallying the troops in a neutral country” when he was photographed meeting army personnel at Shannon in 2004. Dr Edward Horgan, of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, said a neutral country “should not be facilitating such political grandstanding by US political leaders”. Mr Biden is due to visit Belgrade today to meet Serbian president Boris Tadic, and Kosovo, tomorrow, to meet president Fatmir Sejdiu.