LONDON: President Donald Trump’s planned November visit to Ireland has been postponed, the Irish government said on Tuesday, though the White House said only that the trip was up in the air.

The government in Dublin confirmed in a statement that “the proposed visit of the US president is postponed.” It said US officials had “cited scheduling reasons.” Earlier this month, the White House announced Trump would travel to Ireland as part of a trip including a Nov. 11 event in Paris marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Washington had said that Trump would visit Ireland “to renew the deep and historic ties between our two nations.”

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the president would travel to Paris as previously announced. “We are still finalising whether Ireland will be a stop on that trip,” she said.

Trump met with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar at the White House in March as part of the Irish leader’s annual St. Patrick’s Day holiday visit.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2018