Belfast (United Kingdom) (EFE).- The Northern Irish Police (PSNI) has deployed a strong security device before the arrival of US President Joe Biden in Belfast on Tuesday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement .
Law enforcement have already cordoned off several areas in the center of the capital to prevent the passage of vehicles and control pedestrian traffic, while they have reinforced their presence on the streets with additional troops mobilized from other parts of the United Kingdom.
The security measures will be in effect until Wednesday at noon, when Biden plans to leave for Dublin to continue his four-day tour of the island in the Republic of Ireland.
Split in the Northern Irish Government
Biden, of Irish origin, will arrive at Belfast International Airport shortly after 8:00 p.m. GMT today and will be received there by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
On Wednesday, both leaders will hold a bilateral meeting and, later, the president will deliver a speech on the new campus of the University of Ulster, in the Northern Irish capital, in an intervention to which the main political leaders of the region are also invited.
However, it is still unknown if Biden will maintain contacts, either collectively or individually, with Northern Irish politicians, whose divisions over Brexit have kept the government shared between nationalists and unionists suspended for more than a year and have overshadowed the anniversary of the peace agreement.
Doubts about the role of Biden
In this regard, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the main architects of that pact, today celebrated Biden’s visit, but warned that US influence on the peace process must be used with “care and tact”.
“There is a difference between influencing and pressuring, and the former can be positive and the latter negative,” Blair told BBC 4, referring to calls made by Biden to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the second formation, to lift his veto on the Brexit trade arrangements for the region and agree to form a government with the Nationalists.
Likewise, the US president has been characterized in recent years by his rejection of this divorce and is seen as a politician closer to Dublin than to London, both because of his geopolitical vision and because of his deep Irish roots.
“What I learned about unionists is that if you pressure them to do something they fundamentally disagree with, that pressure is usually useless, even from the United States, so they should use that influence carefully,” Blair said.