The president of United States, Joe Biden, He said in Northern Ireland on Wednesday that he hopes for a speedy restoration of his self-government after more than a year of paralysis and stated that his country is ready to triple investments there if that happens, during a visit by the 25th anniversary of the peace agreements in the region. This year’s celebrations were marred by a local political crisis linked to the UK’s departure from the European Union.
“I hope that the Assembly and the Executive will be restored soon,” Biden, whose family has Irish roots, said in a speech at the University of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. The president highlighted his personal commitment to peace in Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, which was promoted by the United States, and assured: “My Irish ancestry has been a part of my soul for as long as I can remember.”
A BelfastAfter his speech, Biden told the leaders of the five main political parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly, including the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Republican party Sinn Féin, that the United States was ready to raise six billion dollars their investments in the region when their autonomy is restored. The US president arrived in Northern Ireland on Tuesday night and met twice with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Signed on April 10, 1998 by the United Kingdom, Ireland and Northern Ireland politicians, the Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of violence between loyalist Northern Irishmen who want to continue integrating the United Kingdom and republican Northern Irish who want to incorporate the region into Ireland, the republic that occupies the rest of the island.
Some 3,500 people died in the conflict in Northern Ireland until the signing of the agreement, which endowed the region with an autonomous government with an Assembly and an Executive that must be shared between the unionists and the republicans. However, Northern Ireland’s home rule was suspended by London following the refusal of the main pro-British party, the DUP, to participate in shared rule over a post-Brexit trade dispute.