President Bush's Special Adviser on Northern Ireland, Mr Richard Haass, held separate talks in Dublin yesterday with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Although the discussions centred on the continuing loyalist violence and protests in the North, they also covered foreign policy issues including Afghanistan, the Middle East and the tensions between India and Pakistan.
Mr Haass, a key adviser to the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, holds responsibility for a wide range of foreign policy issues including Northern Ireland. Mr Haass is on a two-day visit to Ireland and Britain for talks with political leaders.
He said yesterday there was "no justification for the violence in the North, culminating in the killing by loyalists of Catholic postal worker Danny McColgan, whose funeral took place in Belfast yesterday.
"I would not dignify it by ascribing to it a political motive," he said. "It's a police matter. We've got to create an environment where people can't do these things and if they do these things they are arrested." He described those who carried out the killing as "enemies of the political process".