The Minister for Foreign Affairs is expected to return to Dublin today, having attended an emergency meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels today.
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Mr Brian Cowen
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Mr Cowen cut short his trip to the Middle East to attend the meeting over yesterday's attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.
Following today's meeting, European Commission President Mr Romano Prodi said today the European Union stood firm beside the United States following the devastating attacks on key US targets and said terrorism must be defeated.
After a meeting of the EU executive body devoted entirely to the attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, Mr Prodi said he had ordered a tightening of security precautions at the Commission's overseas missions.
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"In the darkest days of European history America stood close by us and today we stand close by America," Mr Prodi told a news briefing after observing a minute of silence in respect for the estimated thousands of people who died in the attacks.
"This criminal act was intended as an assault on all our shared values and on freedom itself," said Mr Prodi, a former Italian prime minister. "It is a true watershed and nothing will ever be the same."
"EU institutions and governments will work in close collaboration with our American friends... We will not allow terrorism to win the day and to divide the world, which is its intention," Mr Prodi said.
Additional reporting from Reuters