Belfast (United Kingdom) (EFE).- US President Joe Biden began a four-day visit to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday with a clear message about the need to “keep peace” in the island, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, the text that put an end to the conflict.
The Democratic president’s Air Force One landed shortly after 20:20 GMT at Belfast International Airport, in the Northern Irish capital, where he was received by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with whom he will hold a bilateral meeting on Wednesday.
His visit of less than a day to Northern Ireland coincides with a moment of crisis for the peace process and a long political paralysis.
The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – the second Northern Irish formation – rejects the new Windsor Framework Agreement, negotiated by London and Brussels to adapt the province to the Brexit trade arrangements.
The unionist veto already goes a long way, because, despite supporting this divorce in the 2016 consultation, it also reneged on the controversial Protocol for Northern Ireland, replaced by the Windsor text to resolve the political and economic problems it caused.
In this context, the Unionist party still refuses to share with the nationalist Sinn Féin, the first formation in the region, the autonomous Executive of Belfast, one of the central elements of the Good Friday pact.
Unionist suspicion of the “Irish” Biden
Before arriving in Belfast, Biden insisted that his “big priority” is to ensure that “the Irish deals and the Windsor deal still stand, that the peace stays.”
For now, the US president has been careful not to make appeals that could upset unionists, who are very sensitive to external pressure and aware that the relationship between Washington and London has not been the best in recent years, especially during the mandates from Boris Johnson and Lizz Truss for their threats to take unilateral steps to alter the Brexit deals, censured by Biden.
Pro-British Protestants also see Biden, who takes every opportunity to flaunt his Irish past and Catholic faith, as a politician closer to Dublin than to London, both because of his geopolitical vision and his origins.
Also not helping is the brevity of his visit to Northern Ireland and the paucity of high-profile events, compared to the three days he will spend in the Republic of Ireland, where meetings with the president, the prime minister, a speech in Parliament and stops in Counties Louth and Mayo to meet their families and address the public.
By contrast, Biden is scheduled to meet with Sunak on Wednesday, before he delivers a speech on the new campus of Ulster University, in the Northern Irish capital, in an intervention to which the main political leaders of the region are also invited.
According to the White House, before leaving tomorrow at noon for Dublin, Biden will also “have the opportunity to interact” with “each” of the leaders of the five main regional parties, although there will not be “a formal group meeting”, as a result of their differences over Brexit.
A Downing Street spokesman, Sunak’s official office, stressed today that the head of government and his American colleague maintain an “incredibly positive working relationship”, despite the fact that Washington has pressured London in recent years regarding this divorce.
London lowers the tension
The source denied to reporters that the meeting between the two leaders in Belfast will be low profile, after various media outlets have indicated that the White House is planning a “coffee meeting” between them, instead of a formal bilateral meeting. .
In this rarefied climate, the US administration has also wanted to highlight the economic nature of the visit and the opportunities that peace presents for the region in this field, one of the points that Biden will touch on during his speech at the university, where he will be accompanied by Washington’s special envoy to the region, Joe Kennedy III (grandson of Robert Kennedy).
Meanwhile, the Northern Irish Police (PSNI) has already deployed a strong security device before the arrival of the president, the “most important in almost ten years”, according to their commanders.
Since early today, the forces of order have cordoned off various 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 brought in from other parts of the United Kingdom.
These security measures are common for visits of this type, although the arrival of Biden has also coincided with an uptick in activity by dissidents from the now dormant IRA, leading the PSNI to raise the level of the terrorist threat from “ considerable” to “severe”.