Now we know it's over!
Kennedy refuses to meet with Adams
By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press, 3/13/2005 17:44
BOSTON (AP) For the first time since Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy is refusing to meet with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on St. Patrick's Day.
Adams, head of the political party affiliated with the Irish Republican Army, traveled to the United States this weekend to seek support from Irish-American activists. The visit came amid outrage over IRA involvement in the killing of a Catholic man outside a pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Bush administration didn't invite Adams to the White House on St. Patrick's Day, for the first time since 1995.
Kennedy, the nation's best-known Irish-American politician, also has met with Adams every St. Patrick's Day since the Good Friday peace pact seven years ago.
But the Massachusetts Democrat, who is Roman Catholic, has informed Adams there won't be a meeting this year, according to Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner.
Adams was scheduled to meet with Kennedy in his Washington, D.C., office Thursday afternoon, but Kennedy decided Saturday to cancel the meeting.
In a statement, Wagoner cited ''the IRA's ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law'' as the reason for Kennedy's decision.
Sinn Fein is reeling from accusations that the IRA mounted the world's largest bank robbery, stealing $50 million from a Belfast bank on Dec. 20, and was responsible for killing Robert McCartney, a Catholic civilian, outside a Belfast pub on Jan. 30.
McCartney's slaying highlights the need for ''IRA violence and criminality to stop,'' she said.
''Sinn Fein cannot be a fully democratic party with the IRA albatross around its neck,'' she said. ''The time for decisive and final action is long overdue.''
Kennedy is scheduled to meet with McCartney's five sisters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The sisters will be guests of the White House on St. Patrick's Day.
Adams, a reputed IRA commander since the mid-1970s, was banned from visiting the United States until 1994, when President Clinton overturned the State Department policy to encourage an IRA cease-fire.
Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report from Washington.
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