Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without
allowing the United Kingdom a back door into the European
Union's markets through the 310-mile (500 km) Irish land border
was one of the most difficult issues of the Brexit divorce.
The British-run region remains deeply split along sectarian
lines 23 years after a peace deal brokered by the United States
largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Many Catholic
nationalists aspire to unification with Ireland while Protestant
unionists want to stay part of the United Kingdom.
The EU and Britain tried to solve the border riddle with the
Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, which keeps
the province in both the United Kingdom's customs territory and
the EU's single market.
But unionists say it contravenes the 1998 peace deal and London
has said the Protocol is unsustainable in its current form after
supplies of everyday goods to Northern Ireland were disrupted.
Biden, who is proud of his Irish heritage, will use a meeting
with Johnson on Thursday to explicitly express U.S. support for
the Protocol. He will also warn that the prospects of a U.S.
trade deal with the United Kingdom will be damaged if the
situation remains unresolved, The Times said.
Biden will also make clear to the European Union that he expects
it to stop being "bureaucratic" and adopt a more flexible
approach to the implementation of the agreement, The paper said.
David Frost, Johnson's Brexit negotiator, is seeking to resolve
the issues over the Brexit deal but the situation on the ground
in terms of trade is "very difficult", Lucy Frazer, a government
minister as Solicitor General for England and Wales, told Sky
News.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by
Catherine Evans)
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