US President Joe Biden arrived in Northern Ireland last night to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The presidential plane Air Force One could be seen on TV at the airport in the Northern Irish capital of Belfast. The US President was welcomed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Biden, who is proud of his Irish origins, wants to address the people of Northern Ireland with a speech at Ulster University in Belfast this afternoon. Meetings were also planned with leaders of major Northern Ireland parties, according to the White House. The priority of his visit is to “keep the peace” and the various agreements, Biden said shortly before his departure. “It looks like we’re going to make it,” he added.
The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended decades of bloody conflict between majority Catholic supporters of unification of the two parts of Ireland and predominantly Protestant supporters of Northern Ireland’s union with Britain.
But even a quarter of a century later, the region is struggling with tensions. It was only on the eve of the Biden visit that riots broke out in the city of Londonderry, which Catholics only call Derry, and a police car was set on fire. Police later found several pipe bombs in the city. The province is also suffering from political paralysis because the largest Protestant Unionist party, the DUP, does not agree with the Brexit rules.
Biden wants to travel from Belfast today to the Irish capital Dublin, where meetings with Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar are scheduled for tomorrow. He also wants to visit places where his ancestors lived.
