US President Bush to visit Northern Ireland to discuss Iraq war

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday April 04, 2003 22:13 by Raghillaigh

Guess who's coming to dinner? This story from Agence France-Presse

US President Bush to visit Northern Ireland to discuss Iraq war

US President George W. Bush is to visit Northern Ireland Monday to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the Iraq war, the prime minister's office said.

Bush will be in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday, Downing Street said Friday.

The two men will also discuss the situation in the Middle East and in Northern Ireland.

It will be Bush and Blair's third summit in recent weeks, following a gathering in the Azores ahead of the outbreak of the Iraq War March 20 and last week's discussions in Camp David in the United States.

A Downing Street spokesman said the two leaders had "found the meetings in the Azores and Camp David very helpful in the development of our strategy on the military, diplomatic and humanitarian fronts."

Ireland Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will also attend the summit.

The three leaders will meet with leaders of Northern Ireland's main Protestant party the Ulster Unionists, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the main Roman Catholic party in the province, in order to get the Northern Ireland peace process back on track.

Blair and Ahern are due to launch make-or-break proposals for the implementation of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, that led to power sharing between Catholics and Protestants.

"It is an important week in the Northern Ireland peace process," the Downing street spokesman said.