Haass in Ireland for Election Talks.

By Sean O’Driscoll

THE U.S. envoy to Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, is due to fly into London on Wednesday to discuss the outcome of the recent Stormont elections with British political leaders. 

Haass will later travel to Belfast and Dublin to discuss the difficulties arising from the election results, which saw the anti-Agreement Democratic Unionist Party eclipse the Ulster Unionist Party as the largest party elected to the Stormont Assembly. 

Haass’s trip comes amid mounting speculation that he is about to leave his post as Northern Ireland envoy and concentrate full time on his role as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential foreign policy think tank. 

Chris Kraft, a State Department official working on the Irish desk, said that Haass had agreed to stay with his Northern Ireland post for six months after he accepted the presidency of the Council on Foreign Relations last summer, but no announcement has yet been planned on whether Haass will now stay or go. 

“He said he would stay on for those six months but he never said that his stay would be indefinite,” Kraft said. 

He added that if Haass announces his departure, his replacement would almost certainly come from within the State Department. 

“It will not be external, it will not be a George Mitchell-type situation,” he said. 

On Haass’s visit, Kraft said that the State Department did not anticipate any significant movements or announcements before the Christmas holidays but would be listening to political leaders to assess the best way forward. 

He said that the State Department would monitor the upcoming five-year review of the Good Friday Agreement, which was a condition accepted by the parties who signed the agreement. 

“Everyone who like to hear the DUP’s input into the review and what they hope to gain from the review,” he said. 

He added that the State Department understood that the people of Northern Ireland had spoken through the election and it was up to the parties to decide where to take the process from that point. 

Haass would be “stock-taking” during the trip to assess the best way forward, he said.