DUP rules out face-to-face meeting with Sinn Féin

A senior member of the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists today ruled out a face-to-face meeting with Sinn Féin until the IRA have disappeared.

As his party prepared for a ground-breaking meeting with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at the Irish Embassy in London today, East Derry MP Gregory Campbell said republicans must address the future of the IRA before Sinn Féin could be treated like a normal political party.