The IRA is not on a list of 30 terrorist organisations drawn up by the US State Department and published here yesterday. The IRA is not on the list because of the ceasefire which means it is not "currently active", an official explained.
But it could be put on the list at any time if the ceasefire is broken, the official said. The loyalist paramilitary organisations are also excluded as is the so-called Continuity Army Council.
The list is not meant to be "exhaustive" but the "first batch" of the main organisations for which sufficient documentation existed. Other terrorist organisations will be added as more information about them becomes available.
The publication of the list follows one day after the visit here of the UUP leader, Mr David Trimble, who raised the question of the list when he met with President Clinton and US officials. Mr Trimble had said earlier at a press conference that he would be asking the administration to put the Continuity Army Council on the list and he assumed the IRA was already on the list.
Mr Trimble, however, confused two different lists drawn up by the State Department. One is an annual list of terrorist acts carried out around the world and the organisation responsible. The IRA was on the last list published earlier this year before the latest ceasefire had been called. The list published yesterday results from the anti-terrorism law passed in the US last year which called on the State Department to draw up a list of terrorist organisations to which the law would be applied. Members of the designated groups which are mainly from the Middle East but also include the Basque ETA organisation and some from Japan and Turkey, are now banned from entering the US and any funds they might have here will be frozen.