INFLUENTIAL members of the US Senate Friends of Ireland group have called on the IRA "to respect the will of Sinn Fein's constituents and immediately restore its ceasefire". They also "urge the loyalist paramilitaries to halt their violence".
In a statement on Northern Ireland, Senators Edward Kennedy, Christopher Dodd and Daniel Moynihan, welcomed the recent initiatives by the Irish and British governments to move the peace process forward, adding that the British aide menoire and the Joint decommissioning paper "offer a clear way to end the current impasse".
"Friends of Ireland in the United States have worked tirelessly to end the violence and achieve an inclusive peace process. That remains our goal, hut recent actions by both paramilitary groups are deeply destructive to those efforts," it said.
The senators warn the loyalist paramilitaries that continuing violence "will undoubtedly end the inclusion of their elected representatives in the peace process".
In a separate statement, Senator Dodd said this week's events are a major watershed in the search for peace for Northern Ireland". He urged those who truly wanted peace "to accept at face value the genuine steps taken especially by the government of Tony Blair to create a favourable climate in which meaningful and substantive talks can occur".