THE Republic's Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney is keen to return to Belfast "as soon as possible" for a peace-building talk after the initial gathering was disrupted following a hoax bomb attack, organisers have said.
Hopes to reschedule the event, which was disrupted last Friday after a van was hijacked in the Shankill Road area and the driver forced to take a hoax device to the venue on the Crumlin Road, come as a man and woman were arrested by police investigating the incident.
A woman, aged 38, was detained on Saturday following searches in the Ballysillan and Springmartin areas in which a suspected firearm, drugs and cash were recovered.
Yesterday a 41-year-old man was arrested under the Terrorism Act. Both remain in custody.
The UVF are thought to be behind the attack, which occurred at the Houben Centre where the event was hosted by the John and Pat Hume Foundation.
The organisation also plans to host an event in Derry this week with Taoiseach Micheál Martin as a speaker.
On Friday Simon Coveney was forced to leave the stage five minutes into his speech after learning a van with a suspected device had been driven to the venue.
The driver has since spoken of how he thought he was going to die when told by the hijackers he would be shot if he refused.
David Campbell, chair of the Loyalist Communities Council, told the News Letter following Friday’s alert that all protests over the protocol should be “peaceful and democratic” but that Irish government representatives were “not welcome in Northern Ireland” until the protocol issues were resolved.
No-one from the Department of Foreign Affairs was available for comment.
Meanwhile, secretary of the John and Pat Hume Foundation, Tim Atwood, said those behind the attack would not deter the organisation from continuing with peace-building work.
"The event is only paused, and I have been in contact with Simon Coveney's team, and he is keen to get back as soon as possible," the former SDLP councillor said.
"We are all frustrated at what's happened...and of course we saw a family's funeral forced to continue in the church carpark as a result.
"The van driver also deserves our sympathy for his ordeal... This only spurs us on with the work we do, inspired by John and Pat Hume. We are unswerving in that commitment, and no individuals in masks will deter us."
Meanwhile, a young loyalist commentator who warned that violence over the Northern Ireland Protocol "was not off the table" has said he cannot rule out living in a future united Ireland.
Joel Keyes, who represented the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) during a hearing of the NI Affairs Committee at Westminster last year, has said it "seems kind of foolish" to rule out the possibility of a united Ireland, "or rule out my support for it".
"We simply don't known what that would look like, it could look like so much different things," Mr Keyes said when speaking about the north's constitutional future," he said.
