Irish leaders praise NI unity
Updated on 17 March 2009
Irish leaders visiting the US have condemned the recent Northern Ireland attacks but praised communities rallying against the violence.
During a news conference in Washington with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin praised the demonstration of unity against the perpetrators.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who is due to meet President Barack Obama and Mrs Clinton later for St Patrick's Day celebrations, said that those behind the renewed violence are trying to undermine his party for its support of the peace process.
He said: "They want to destroy the gains that have been made for the people and by the people and they cannot be allowed to succeed." Mr Adams added that the vast majority of the people in Northern Ireland support the peace process.
Mrs Clinton said the incidents in which two British soldiers and a police officer were killed was "an affront to the values of every community, every ethnicity, every religion and every nation that seeks peace."
Analysts have said dissidents hope the killings will undermine the current US visit of Northern Irish leaders, including, Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson, the Protestant leader of the power-sharing government.
Mr McGuinness, a former IRA commander, is now the senior Irish Catholic in the government.
On Monday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) arrested two suspected IRA dissidents in addition to nine arrests made last week in an investigation into this month's killings of Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, in the Co Armagh town of Craigavon on March 9.
Meanwhile the PSNI said it had been given an extra five days to question three men - aged 41, 32 and 21 - who were arrested on Saturday over the murders of the two soldiers at Massereene Barracks in Antrim 48 hours before PC Carroll's murder.
Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, and Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, were shot dead at the gates of the base when they went to collect pizzas which were being delivered just before they were to head off to Afghanistan for a tour of duty.
A fourth man is also being questioned about the murder, claimed by the Real IRA.
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