PRESIDENT George W Bush will urge the IRA to renounce all forms of paramilitary activity and to support the police in a speech he will give in Washington on Thursday.

The American president is also expected to support the British and Irish governments’ push to restore Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration and to impose sanctions on any party that breaks its commitment to peace.

Sinn Fein representatives, including Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty, Gerry Kelly and Martin Ferris, will be in the audience for Bush’s speech.

Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable, will become the first Northern Ireland police chief to attend the traditional St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Washington. Orde will bring two police recruits, one Catholic and one Protestant, to represent reconciliation and equality of opportunity within the force.

When Bill Clinton was in the White House, Adams and McGuinness were allowed to shake hands publicly with the president at the St Patrick’s Day bash, while most of the Irish political class attended a series of receptions in Washington.

This year Bush is unlikely to meet Sinn Fein unless the IRA makes an earlier conciliatory gesture. Instead there are plans to give groups of community representatives, drawn from both traditions in Northern Ireland, pride of place in the Oval Office.

The IRA is preparing a statement which, while it may stop short of saying “the war is over”, may amount to the same thing. It is likely to be issued within the next five weeks.

The statement is expected to be accompanied by a Sinn Fein decision to support the PSNI and to take its places on the police board.

The Sinn Fein representatives, all of whom have current or past associations with the IRA, now find it difficult to get permission to enter America unless they have appointments to meet government officials. They will use the few days before their visa waivers run out to promote the proposed change in policy among American supporters and will raise funds at a series of ticket-only events in 11 cities.

Irish-American support has been vital to changes of IRA strategy and on this occasion the pressure is likely to be for concessions.

Orde has won the support of key Irish-American opinion formers, including Bill Flynn of Mutual of America and Niall O’Dowd of the Irish Voice, and this new law-and-order mood in Irish America will be conveyed to Sinn Fein.

The IRA statement and the deal surrounding it have been the subject of regular contacts between the British, Irish and American governments and the Northern Ireland parties.

David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader who has been in extensive contact with Sinn Fein in the past week, said yesterday that the IRA needs to say that the war is over and it is being wound up.

Trimble has made it clear that he will not return to government with Sinn Fein without a substantial act of IRA decommissioning and the introduction of sanctions to punish Sinn Fein if the IRA breaks its word.

“If they don’t decommission straight away then we will wait until they do,” the Ulster Unionist leader said.

Times Recommends

• Thousands of Tamils dying in 'welfare camp'
• Jackson 'rebuilt his nose before he died'
• Renewed Iran protests crushed by militia