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Date Posted: 17:14:02 03/15/05 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: King set to meet with Adams (Newsday)

King set to meet with Adams

A St. Patrick's Day visit with Sinn Fein leader is still on, as congressman calls for the IRA to disband



BY J. JIONI PALMER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

March 15, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Unlike other American politicians, Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) plans to meet with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams this week, but at the same time he will deliver a stern message to his old friend: It's time to disband the Irish Republican Army.

"It is time for the IRA to dissolve," said King, one of the staunchest supporters in Congress of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA. "As the political process moves closer to the goal line as I see it, they [the IRA] are not serving any good purpose. Gerry Adams should declare victory and tell the IRA to disband."

King's comments yesterday come at a time of intense criticism of the IRA and Adams, who is in New York and Washington this week for a series of St. Patrick's Day-related events.

In December, IRA members were suspected of being involved in a bank heist that netted about $50 million. A month later, there was the grisly slaying of a Sinn Fein loyalist outside a Belfast pub, allegedly at the hands of party members and in front of nearly 70 witnesses, but no one has come forward to identify the perpetrators. Both acts and Adams' seemingly tepid denunciations drew fire, here and in Ireland.

The developments came as a potential power-sharing deal between Catholics and Protestants collapsed in December.

For the first time since the Northern Ireland peace process got under way during the mid-1990s, no politicians from Northern Ireland have been invited to official St. Patrick's Day celebrations at the White House or on Capitol Hill. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has met with Adams on every St. Patrick's Day since the Good Friday peace accord in 1998, said Sunday that he would not meet with Adams this year.

King, who plans to meet with Adams several times this week, said Adams is an integral part of the peace process and that, as head of Sinn Fein, he should not be sidelined. "It took a movement that was 99 percent military and made it primarily political," King said.

Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.

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