February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“In our talks, the minister was much more upbeat and hopeful about the peace process,” said Ambassador Reiss in an interview after the meeting at William and Mary College, in Williamsburg, Virginia, where Reiss is a provost.
He said both he and the McDowell were optimistic about prospects for restarting talks before autumn.
Minister McDowell has been one of the leading critics of Sinn Fein and previously opposed meeting with Sinn Fein following the Robert McCartney murder and the Northern Bank heist in Belfast which was widely attributed to the IRA.
Reiss said there has been some positive movement in the peace process. He noted that such leaders in the DUP as MPs Gregory Campbell and Nigel Dodds both accepted the results released by the Independent Monitoring Commission’s report.
“When the time comes for the IMC to verify any future weapons disarmament by IRA, it is good to know the DUP will receive the IMC reports confident in the report’s accuracy,” said Reiss.
Also in the U.S. last week was chief Sinn Fein negotiator, Martin
McGuinness, who met with members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Sinn Fein’s representative to the US, Rita O’Hare, was denied a visa to accompany McGuinness but Ambassador Reiss stressed that the denial was not indicative of a policy change by the Bush administration towards Sinn Fein.
“I voted in favor of giving her the visa, but there are other government agencies involved in the process, and it was decided to deny her the visa,” he said.
Those agencies include the State Department, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. O’Hare made an unscheduled stop in Florida and was accompanied Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly last January.
Neither O’Hare or Kelly had listed a trip to Florida with US officials on their submitted itineraries which needed to include all of their destinations when turned in for their visas.
“They did not put in the correct paperwork, and these are the consequences,” said Ambassador Reiss.
He said he did not expect there to be any further action taken against O’Hare. However, it was likely that Kelly’s next visa request would be denied as well.
Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA) was one of the congressman to meet with both McGuinness and Ambassador Reiss in the Capitol last week.
Neal said he found both McGuinness and Reiss equally optimistic that progress would be made and the government would be restarted in the North with Sinn Fein included.
Ambassador Reiss, meanwhile, also testified last week before a House International Relations Committee subcommittee that deals with Europe.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) testified that he had serious concerns over Northern Ireland’s current political fortunes.
“The devolved government has been suspended since 2002, negotiations remain stalemated and the IRA’s commitment to disarmament and non-violence appears shaky at best,” he said and noted in his prepared remarks the strength of the DUP in the recent UK parliamentary elections.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) said he had additional worries as well over the IRA.
“Another concern of mine is the IRA’s links with the FARC in Colombia and Castro’s Cuba,” he said.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) attended the committee hearing and listened to Ambassador Reiss testify about the contribution of a “criminal culture” in the North that encourages such acts as the Northern Bank heist and the Robert McCartney murder.
King said the McCartney murder itself had nothing to do with the politics or the IRA’s philosophical agenda. He said such violence could have happened in a bar in the U.S.
McCartney was killed January in a pub in Belfast. Since the murder, several members of Sinn Fein have left the party over the killing, which many people maintain was carried out by senior members of the IRA.