DUP and Sinn Féin must meet, says US envoy

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists must speak directly to Sinn Féin if the problems in Northern Ireland’s peace process are to be resolved, a United States government official claimed today.

As he prepared to meet members of the Strabane District Policing Partnership, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, who is President George Bush's special envoy to the North, urged unionists and republicans to thrash out their differences over the negotiating table.