Sinn Fein isolated in US after senator calls off talks

THE United States senator Ted Kennedy has called off talks with Sinn Fein’s leader, Gerry Adams, it emerged last night.

The IRA’s involvement in the murder of Robert McCartney has left Sinn Fein isolated in the US, and the decision to scrap the meeting planned for Thursday added to mounting pressure on the republican leadership.

Mr Adams has already been refused a meeting with President George Bush at the White House and he will not be attending the St Patrick’s Day lunch hosted by Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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The IRA’s on-going criminal activity, including the part played by its members in the murder of Mr McCartney and its alleged role in the 26.5 million Northern Bank robbery, means that Mr Adams will face a barrage of tough questions in the US.

Senator Kennedy’s spokeswoman, Melissa Wagoner, said: "[He] has decided to decline to meet with Gerry Adams, given the IRA’s on-going criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law.

"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 Fein to co-operate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland."

Meanwhile, the party’s most high-profile supporter in Congress, the Republican senator Peter King, of New York, called on the IRA to disband. He said

Americans were finding it "hard to see what the justification is for the continued existence of the IRA".

As Sinn Fein faced a tough week in the US, pressure continued on the party in Belfast over claims it was seeking to cover up the role of republicans in Mr McCartney’s murder.

The dead man’s family challenged Sinn Fein’s fitness for government yesterday following revelations that one of its election candidates was in Magennis’s bar on the night he was murdered.

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