PRESIDENT Bush arrived in Belfast last night to face rare criticism from Irish republicans, who accused him of using the Northern Ireland peace process to prop up support for war in Iraq.

On the eve of crucial talks between Mr Bush and Northern Ireland’s main party leaders, Gerry Adams called the President’s decision to hold a war summit with Tony Blair in the Province “insensitive”.

“We would be wrong not to point it out . . . the insensitivity of having a war summit which then discusses peace in the margins, of having a war summit which appears to be trying to use the Irish process as a stage or as a prop,” the Sinn Fein leader said.

Staunchly opposed to the war in Iraq but eager to stay on good terms with the White House, Sinn Fein has been placed in an awkward position by Mr Bush’s visit. The party is attempting to maintain its opposition to military action without attacking the President personally.

Senior Sinn Fein figures joined anti-war protesters who marched towards Hillsborough Castle where the war summit took place amid tight security. About four thousand protesters carrying anti-war placards made their way to the outskirts of Hillsborough, where they were addressed by Mitchel McLaughlin, the Sinn Fein chairman. They jeered and whistled as the President’s helicopter flew overhead on the way to the castle.

Mr Bush and Mr Blair walked in the gardens for half an hour before holding “informal and freewheeling” talks over dinner, where they discussed the unexpectedly rapid progress into Baghdad.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and Mr Blair will return to Belfast to publish a joint blueprint with Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister, to try to revive the Stormont Assembly. Mr Blair hopes that the President’s personal involvement, the first time he has become significantly engaged in the issue, will encourage the parties to swing behind his new proposals on security, policing, political institutions and equality.

However, the anti-war protesters who marched towards Hillsborough were less than convinced about Mr Bush’s sincerity in travelling to Northern Ireland. While the majority listened to anti-war speeches, a tense stand-off took place between up to 1,000 demonstrators and riot police blocking the country road into the village near Belfast. In farcical scenes, two demonstrators at the front of the crowd — one banging a pot with a stick, the other beating a frying pan with a metal lid — advanced to within inches of the police.

The protesters, singing “This is what Democracy Sounds like” and “Shame, Shame, Shame”, carried Palestine flags and anti-war placards bearing the messages “Osama Bin Bush”, “USA — Unsanctioned State Aggression” and “Boycott Bush, War Criminal”. As the protest threatened to turn violent, a group of up to 40 jumped over a hedge into a neighbouring field guarded by a line of riot police with alsatian dogs.

The television footage of the protests did not provide the images that President Bush and Mr Blair hoped to see accompany their talks on how to apply the lessons from the Ulster peace process to the Middle East. Mr Bush is due to publish the international “road map” to help to resolve the Israel-Palestine dispute.

Israel has already lodged its protest over 15 aspects of the road map with the White House, including a demand to halt settlement activity.

However, far from taking Israel’s protests as a bad sign, British officials said that it showed that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, knew Mr Bush was serious about the plan. Progress in the wider Middle East would help Mr Blair to heal the rift that has opened up with the Labour Party over war in Iraq.

Detailed talks on the proposed interim administration in Iraq, which will take over from US military rule, will take place today when Jack Straw and Colin Powell will join the two leaders, along with Condoleezza Rice, who flew in from Moscow last night for the dinner.

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