The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, will today meet Mr Richard Haass, President Bush's special adviser on the North, to explain the party's objections to joining the Policing Board.
Mr Haass yesterday urged Sinn Féin to take its seats on the board. After meeting the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, in London, he said the support of Sinn Féin would help create conditions to normalise security.
Mr Haass also confirmed that the FBI had agreed to provide training for the Police Service of Northern Ireland after the US Congress lifted previous restrictions. He said it was in Sinn Féin's own interests to put forward representatives to serve on the board.
"Sinn Féin taking the decision to appoint people to the Police Board, to stop discouraging people from joining the new police service, is clearly something that would be in the interest of all the people of Northern Ireland.
"That seems to go a long way towards creating a safer and more secure environment and that in turn will, I believe, make it easier for the British government to make decisions to continue the normalisation of security."
Sinn Féin's policing spokesman, Mr Gerry Kelly, said: "Our objection to joining the Policing Board rests on the fact that it does not have the power as envisaged by Patten to hold the police force democratically accountable."
Mr Kelly said this week's meetings on loyalist violence between the SDLP and the Northern Security Minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, was a tacit recognition of where power on policing actually lay.
He said Mr Adams in his meeting with Mr Haass in Belfast today would "set out our concerns and seek his help in moving the British government back to objectives for policing set down in the Good Friday Agreement".
Mr Haass, who arrived in Belfast yesterday evening, met the Policing Board and was presented with the new cap badge which officers will soon wear.
The board's chairman, Prof Desmond Rea, said the badge was a symbol of the new beginning in policing and the design was "respectful of diversity, inclusiveness, and parity".