Irish foreign minister taken off stage in Belfast after security alert - Reuters

Officials removed Simon Coveney, the Irish Foreign Minister, from the stage of a speech in Belfast today. The event organizers claimed that a suspicious device was found in a van in the venue's car park.

One of the organizers said that the van driver was forced to drive the van to north Belfast. A Reuters journalist on the scene stated that Coveney was taken from the stage in his government vehicle and driven to the venue.

"There is currently a security alert. The PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland), are currently assessing it. Tim Attwood (secretary of the Hume Foundation), the event organizer, said that everyone had to evacuate the center.

Coveney spokesperson said that the minister and his staff were safe and taken to a secure place.

According to the PSNI, police are on scene at the location where a 400-metre exclusion zone (yards) was set up.

After alerting security personnel to the incident, the driver burst into tears and apologised to everyone for having to drive to the location.

Coveney tweeted that he was saddened and frustrated that someone had been victimised or attacked, and that his thoughts were with that driver.

"I spoke with the poor man whose van had been hijacked... He has lost his memory. He's traumatised. It's unreal," Father Aidan O'Kane (manager of the Houben Centre), told Reuters.

O'Kane stated that a funeral at the nearby church had also to be evacuated.

This incident occurs three days after the United Kingdom reduced its Northern Ireland-terrorism threat level. Police said that operations against Irish nationalist militants made attacks less likely.

A few militants who opposed the 1998 peace agreement that ended Northern Ireland's Troubles are still active and sometimes carry out attacks.

They are a small number in comparison to the three-decade-old conflict between Irish nationalists who seek unification with the Irish Republic, the British Army and pro British loyalists who want to keep Northern Ireland under British control.

Brandon Lewis, Britain's Northern Ireland Minister, said that he was being kept informed about the incident. Lewis tweeted, "Solidarity to Simon Coveney & all those impacted."