Biden to pledge support for peace and investment in Belfast

[April 12, 2023]  By Steve Holland and Amanda Ferguson

BELFAST (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden will mark the 25th anniversary of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace deal in Belfast on Wednesday and highlight his "strong desire" to increase U.S. investment there in meetings with political leaders, a senior U.S. official said.

Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, will spend just over half a day in the UK region - including a meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - before travelling south to the Irish Republic for two-and-a-half days of speeches and meetings with officials and distant relatives.

The brief Belfast stop comes against the backdrop of the latest political stalemate in which the devolved powersharing government, a key part of the 1998 peace deal, has not met for more than a year due to a row about post-Brexit trade arrangements.

Britain's departure from the European Union also at times strained ties between Britain and Biden's White House as London and Brussels struggled to find a divorce deal that would not damage the principles of the peace agreement.

"His message is going to be the continued strong support for seeing the peace process move forward here," U.S. National Security Council Senior Director for Europe Amanda Sloat told reporters ahead of a speech by Biden at a Belfast university.

"The strong desire by this president is to increase U.S. investment in Northern Ireland to take advantage of the vast economic potential that he sees here and to reiterate broad support for the return of devolved government."

'HUGE PITY'

Biden will also discuss the latest developments in Ukraine with Sunak but is not expected to speak about a potential free trade agreement with Britain, Sloat added.

Speaking to reporters before leaving Washington, Biden said he wanted to lend his support to the recent Windsor Framework deal between the European Union and Britain to ease post-Brexit trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

That deal has so far failed to convince the region's largest pro-British party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to end a boycott of the local assembly. Powersharing has endured multiple breakdowns and suspensions since 1998, including the assembly not sitting between 2017 and 2020 over a different row.

"It is a huge pity and a huge disappointment that the president of the free world is not addressing the (devolved) assembly," former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, told Channel 4 News.

"There's no good hiding that fact. It's a big own goal."

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Jane Hartley greet U.S. President Joe Biden next to Joe Kennedy upon Biden's arrival at RAF Aldergrove airbase in County Antrim, Northern Ireland April 11, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The 1998 peace accord largely ended 30 years of bloodshed between mainly Catholic nationalist opponents and mainly Protestant unionist supporters of British rule.

'NOT ANTI-BRITISH'

The DUP has said Biden's visit - the first to the region by a U.S. president in 10 years - will not convince it to end its protest at the trade rules that treat the province differently to the rest of the UK.

The DUP criticised some of Biden's interventions during the Brexit talks and one of its lawmakers, Sammy Wilson, an outspoken critic of the new deal, described Biden as "anti-British" on Wednesday in an interview with a British newspaper.

Sloat said Biden's track record "shows that he's not anti-British". U.S. officials have said that Biden was not planning to pressure the parties in short engagements with the leaders at Ulster University where he will make his speech.

"It's sad that it's happening in the context of not having a sitting assembly, of the Good Friday Agreement not being fully functional, but we have to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in," Naomi Long, the leader of the Alliance party, told Irish national broadcaster RTE.

Biden was flanked on his arrival by new U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs Joseph Kennedy III, of the storied Irish American political family, who will remain in Northern Ireland for a number of days to meet business leaders.

Sloat said that while the U.S would not put conditions on any economic investment in Northern Ireland, it was fair to say a functioning government would further provide stability and certainty to businesses.

Biden will travel later on Wednesday to County Louth - midway between Belfast and Dublin - where his great-grandfather was born. Stormy weather is expected across the island.

Biden will meet relatives from another side of his family in the western county of Mayo on Friday.

Biden's great-great-grandfather Owen Finnegan, a shoemaker from County Louth, emigrated to the United States in 1849. His family, including Biden's great-grandfather James Finnegan, followed him in 1850.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Additional reporting by Conor Humphries; Editing by Peter Graff and Alex Richardson)

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