The Republic is to be present for the first time at a NATO summit when member-states of the military alliance meet in Prague later this month.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, is expected to lead a high-level delegation from Ireland to the Czech Republic, where NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) members will be discussing a military response to terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
The Department of Foreign Affairs last night emphasised that Ireland would not be represented at the actual NATO summit, but would instead be sending a delegation to the meeting of a related body, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
However, the EAPC is meeting in the same building, the Prague Congress Centre, and at the same time - on the weekend of November 20/21 - as the NATO summit. Although the agenda has not yet been published, it is understood that the two bodies will have shared meetings.
The EAPC brings together NATO and non-NATO members for discussions on security matters in the "Euro-Atlantic area" and serves as a framework for Partnership for Peace, which Ireland joined in 1999.
Opposition politicians last night criticised the Irish presence at the summit.
The Green Party spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr John Gormley, said it showed clearly that there was an "integral link" between PfP and NATO. "PfP was 'NATO for kids'," he said.
Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins accused the Government of "utter subservience" to US foreign policy, expressed through NATO. "It shows how we are being dragged into the slipstream of US policy for the want of an independent policy of our own."
The Department was unable to confirm who will lead the Irish delegation, but sources within the Czech organisers said that they expected Mr Cowen to attend. Other traditionally neutral countries such as Switzerland and Austria are also members of EAPC, a spokesman pointed out.
World leaders from 19 NATO countries and 27 "partner states", including the US President George W. Bush, are due to attend the summit.
As well as agreeing new initiatives for NATO involvement in fighting terrorism, the meeting is expected to propose new measures to increase co-operation with EAPC countries such as Ireland.
PfP activities include defence planning and budgeting, military exercises and civil emergency operations. All 27 PfP members are also members of the EAPC.
Fianna Fáil originally promised not to join PfP without a referendum, but later changed its mind. The Dáil voted 112-24 to join the organisation in November 1999.
Ireland was the only EU state not to attend the last NATO summit, held in Washington on the organisation's 50th anniversary in 1999.
