An SDLP Assembly member has sought an urgent meeting with the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, after it emerged that the British army is not planning to remove its observation tower from the base at Cloghogue, near Newry, on the main Dublin-Belfast road.
On Tuesday evening Sir Ronnie announced a scaling-down of security, including the demolition of the structure at Cloghogue. However, when The Irish Times checked with the British army, a spokesman said this referred to the structure on the road but not to the observation post on the hill overlooking the road.
Mr John Fee, the SDLP Assembly member for Newry and Armagh, said yesterday that on Tuesday Sir Ronnie unequivocally stated that the observation base at Cloghogue would be removed within weeks.
"The most obvious and intrusive military facility on the most heavily-travelled route between the North and the South of this island was to go. Now we find that the army is interpreting the Chief Constable in a highly restricted and frankly irrational way," added Mr Fee. "This is an unacceptable act of deception."
The Sinn Fein MLA, Mr Conor Murphy, said he wanted a meeting with Downing Street to discuss the issue.
An RUC spokesman said that when Sir Ronnie referred to the demolition of the "observation base" he meant the structure on the main road.
