By Cillian Sherlock, PA
Sinn Féin’s White House boycott is a “manoeuvre” to set First Minister Michelle O’Neill up for an Irish presidential bid, the leader of the DUP has suggested.
On Friday, Sinn Féin announced that the party’s president Mary Lou McDonald and Ms O’Neill, the party’s vice president, would not attend events in Washington, DC as part of an annual tradition for St Patrick’s Day.
The party said it was taking a “principled stance” against US President Donald Trump’s “threat of mass expulsion” of Palestinians from Gaza.
It came after Mr Trump suggested Israel would turn Gaza over to the US for redevelopment into the “Riviera of the Middle East” – involving a mass displacement of Palestinians from the territory.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said his party would be represented in Washington DC and characterised the new Sinn Féin position as “a bit odd”.
In a letter to DUP members seen by the PA news agency, Mr Robinson questioned why Sinn Féin was proceeding with the boycott during a ceasefire in Gaza despite attending events in Washington last year when the conflict was raging.
He said: “Go figure that principled position.”
Mr Robinson also accused Sinn Féin of being “on manoeuvres to shore up their left wing” ahead of a presidential election in Ireland towards the end of this year.
He suggested that this is why the press conference involving Ms O’Neill was held in Dublin.
On Friday, Ms O’Neill rejected suggestions that the decision to boycott events in the US capital contradicts her repeated pledge to be a ‘First Minister for all’.
She told the PA news agency that she believes the party has made the right decision.
“I am a First Minister for everybody, and I’ve borne that out every day in my role in the last year since I took up that post,” Ms O’Neill said.
“But there are times when political leaders are tasked to make a decision, and I had to make a decision, and I believe that the right decision at this time is to come down on the side of humanity.
“I couldn’t in good conscience travel to the United States, be part of a Shamrock reception in the White House, at a time where the new US administration is actually actively threatening to remove Palestinian people from their land, to seize their land, and they’ve very much moved away from a two-state solution.
“I couldn’t in all conscience make that trip at this time. I just think that there are times whenever we’ll all reflect, and certainly whenever my grandchildren ask me, what did I do whenever the Palestinian people were suffering, I could say that I stood in the sight of humanity.”
Ms O’Neill said the party will continue to engage with the administration on economic matters, saying she will travel to North Carolina as part of a economic mission about job creation.
The next Irish presidential election must take place by late October. Candidates have yet to be formally declared.
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