A senior Ulster Unionist Party delegation had its flight turned back yesterday while it was en route to the US because of the attacks in New York and Washington.
The aborted trip was due to coincide with a visit to Northern Ireland by President Bush's special adviser on Northern Ireland, Mr Richard Haas. Despite turmoil in the US, Mr Haas decided to proceed with his visit, said a spokesman for the US consulate in Belfast.
While he was meeting the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in Dublin yesterday word came through of the attack on the World Trade Centre. Yesterday evening he none the less travelled to Belfast for engagements with party leaders last night and today.
High on the agenda of his scheduled meeting with Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein last night was the allegation of an IRA link with Colombian guerrillas.
Well-placed sources said Mr Haas and the US administration were "furious" that there could be any connection between the IRA and FARC, and that these concerns would be put directly and forcibly to Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness. The explosions, death and mayhem in the US, they said, would intensify the sense of American anger that republicans could be connected to a South American guerrilla organisation.
After he met President Bush's "point man" on Northern Ireland, the Director of Policy and Planning at the State Department, Mr Ahern said their discussion on Northern Ireland had been "truncated" as a result of the attacks in the US.
A senior Sinn Fein source said politicians should be wary of attempts to exploit the arrest of the three Irishmen in Bogota in order to disadvantage Sinn Fein. He said Mr Adams was hoping that the US administration would support his call for the three men to be released.
Plans by Ulster Unionists to cause further embarrassment to Sinn Fein over the Bogota arrests were put on hold yesterday after a party delegation bound for the US had its flight turned back to London due to the bombings in the US.
Mr Jeffrey Donaldson MP, Lord Ken Maginnis and Belfast City councillor Mr Chris McGimpsey were planning to brief politicians, commentators and senior journalists in the US capital and New York in the coming days on the alleged link between the IRA and the Colombian guerrilla group, FARC.
"The United States has been the bulwark against the threat of terrorist anarchy in the world. We will be urging politicians to take the appropriate action in terms of their approach to Sinn Fein/IRA," said Lagan Valley MP Mr Donaldson before boarding his flight.
Meanwhile, it is understood, Sinn Fein is resisting renewed pressure from the Taoiseach to accept the new policing arrangements in the North but will continue to discuss the issue with the Government in the coming days.
As the September 23rd deadline for political agreement in the North gets closer, the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said earlier yesterday that his party and the Government did not agree on the issue. Speaking after talks with the Taoiseach at Government Buildings, he said Sinn Fein and the Government "agreed to disagree on the issue".
The Government and the SDLP have urged northern nationalists to accept the new Police Service of Northern Ireland. However, Sinn Fein says it will not accept the new arrangements until further changes recommended in the Patten report are made. Without Sinn Fein acceptance of the police force there will be no IRA movement on decommissioning, and therefore no agreement from the Ulster Unionist Party to resume full operation of the North's political institutions.
