Bush urges US investments in N Ireland.

Interesting.. He is asking U.S. investors to invest overseas. And why Northern Ireland? Because of the ties to UK and First Minister Paisley and the booming stock market in England, you wonder why. Of course, this will benefit Dick and George. It is shame that U.S. market is in the tank.


Raw Story:


US President George W. Bush on Friday promised Northern Ireland leaders visiting him at the White House that he would push US companies to invest in the British province's cash-hungry economy.


Bush also praised First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, making their first joint visit to the United States, for setting aside their bitter differences enough to help forge peace.


"I congratulate you for seizing the moment and writing a hopeful chapter. I'm looking forward to hearing about how the United States can help Northern Ireland move forward," he said as they met in his Oval Office.


"I know one way we can help, and that is to encourage our business leaders to take a good look at the economic opportunities that Northern Ireland presents," said Bush, as both of his guests nodded in agreement.


The two leaders, who took office in May under a US-backed power-sharing deal, expressed gratitude for US support and vowed to keep working to hold the violence that tore at the province for three decades definitively at bay.


Paisley's hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) strongly favors Northern Ireland remaining a part of Britain, while Sinn Fein, for whom McGuinness is deputy first minister, has pushed for union with Ireland.


"We have had our political squabbles. I think we have come to the end of that. I think that peace has come. There will be a fight for peace. You don't win peace; you have to fight to keep it," said Paisley.


"But we do need help in the economic field. And we're glad that the door has opened. We have had a very good reception in your company so far."


McGuinness, whose socialist Sinn Fein is the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army, said the people of Northern Ireland were "hugely appreciative" for Bush's support and help from his predecessor, Bill Clinton.


"What we now need to do, as you have correctly identified, is transform the economic situation so that we can give our young people in particular a better future," said McGuinness.
He also joked about the political transformation of Northern Ireland, saying that before a March 26 agreement to restore self-rule "Ian Paisley and I never had a conversation about anything, not even about the weather."


"And now we have worked very closely together over the course of the last seven months and there hasn't been an angry word between us. So I think that that clearly shows that we are set for a new course," he said.


Thanks to US aid, as well as a planned economic investment conference in May, "the future looks brighter than it ever has in the course of Irish history," said McGuinness.


The two leaders held talks Thursday with top US lawmakers, including the speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi announced she was inviting Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern to address a joint session of the US Congress next year, a Pelosi aide indicated.


"To get an opportunity like this is obviously something that doesn't happen too often," Ahern, who will be the first Irish premier to address Congress, said Friday.

Ireland and Britain hope self-rule will bring permanent stability to Northern Ireland, a British-ruled province where more than 3,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence since the late 1960s.


Next June will be the tenth anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday peace accords hammered out in talks chaired by former US senator George Mitchell, in a push largely propelled by Clinton.


The accord introduced a semi-autonomous power-sharing assembly and called for all paramilitary groups to disarm.