3 September 2006

US anger as Adams presses ahead with visit to Palestinian terror group

By Toby Harnden in Washington

GERRY ADAMS, the Sinn Fein president, is planning to travel to the occupied Palestinian territories to hold talks with Hamas this week despite a furious protest from the United States, which is determined to isolate the terrorist group.

The visit is a major political risk for Mr Adams because many of his Irish-American allies on Capitol Hill are also staunch backers of Israel. Congressmen Peter King of New York and Chris Smith of New Jersey, normally vocal in their support, both declined to discuss the issue with The Sunday Telegraph.

But the trip could give Sinn Fein an electoral boost in the Irish Republic, where pro-Palestinian sentiment runs high. Mr Adams is likely to argue that he is promoting peace and to capitalise on the European Union’s announcement on Friday that Hamas could become a “credible partner” in negotiations.

A US diplomat confirmed the meeting with Hamas had been arranged although a State Department spokesman would not make official comment.

Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist, has carried out a campaign of suicide bombing against the Jewish state and continues to hold Cpl Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, captive after kidnapping him in June. It is listed as a terrorist group by the EU and US.

Mr Adams intends to fly to Tel Aviv today(Mon) on his Irish passport and to enter Israel as a tourist. He has requested audiences with President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat’s moderate successor as Palestinian president, and Ismail Haniya, a Hamas leader who was elected Palestinian prime minister in January.

Western diplomats said that Mitchell Reiss, President George W. Bush’s Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, had told Mr Adams that the Bush administration strongly disapproved of the Hamas meeting and made it “crystal clear” it would set back Sinn Fein’s attempts to resume raising funds in the US.

Sinn Fein has been effectively banned from fundraising in America since last year following the involvement of IRA members in the murder of Robert McCartney in a Belfast bar and the pounds26.5 million Northern Bank robbery.

Since then, the party’s leaders have been issued only tourist visas to the US and denied work visas. They have lobbied, with British government support, for this sanction to be lifted. Western diplomats said their case for fundraising had been “deeply damaged” by the overture to Hamas.

It was unclear last night whether Mr Adams would be allowed into Gaza, where Hamas has its headquarters, or the West Bank. Access to the occupied Palestinian territories is tightly controlled by Israeli forces. Israeli officials would not even guarantee that Mr Adams would be allowed through Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.

Israel refuses to hold talks with any politicians who meet Hamas. “Our position regarding contact with Hamas is clear,” said an Israeli official. “We cannot see how any good can come of this visit.”

In March, Mr Adams was detained at a New York airport and questioned after his name appeared on a terrorist watch list. There have been longstanding connections between the IRA and extremist Palestinian groups.

MI5 believes that Mr Adams remains a member of the IRA’s ruling Army Council. Western and Israeli intelligence officials assess that the IRA and Hezbollah have swapped bomb technology, most notably over the development of passive infra-red to trigger bombs, a technique now used by Iranian-backed insurgents in Iraq.

Mr Reiss was said by one US-based source close to Northern Ireland negotiations to be “livid” about the Hamas visit. “The American view is that Adams is a hypocrite for refusing to move on the policing issue in Northern Ireland or to rejoin the assembly there while at the same time trying to pose as a peacemaker with terrorists from Hamas,” said the source

Hamas is currently negotiating with the Fatah party, which recognises Israel, to form a unity government in the Palestinian territories. Some British officials have expressed hopes that Hamas could embrace the political process in the same way  Sinn Fein did in the 1990s.

American officials have become increasingly frustrated with the Irish republican movement after the IRA engaged in training Farc narco-terrorists in Colombia seven years ago and Mr Adams visited Cuba to meet Fidel Castro in 2001.

Sinn Fein’s opposition to American planes refueling at Shannon airport en route to Iraq further alienated the Bush administration. In March, Mr Adams publicly critiicsed Mr Reiss.  "I don't have high regards for Mitchell Reiss's input into this process" he said. "If it is he who is advising the president, it's very very bad advice."

Mr Adams’s decision to meet Hamas will leave relations between Sinn Fein and the White House at their lowest ebb since President Bill Clinton ignored British protests to grant Mr Adams his first US visa in 1994.

The Sinn Fein president angered relatives of victims of Spain’s Eta in June when he backed plans for talks to be held with the terrorist group before it had given up its weapons.