WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden left Washington on Tuesday to visit Northern Ireland and Ireland, where he will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday peace deal and celebrate his family roots.
Air Force One took off from Joint Base Andrews for Belfast, where the president will be greeted by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Before boarding the plane, the president told reporters that his visit’s main priority was ensuring the Windsor agreement, Irish accords, and the stay in place.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement brought a political power-sharing accord between the British Protestant loyalists wishing the province to remain part of the UK and the pro-independence Catholic forces in Northern Ireland.
The landmark agreement was brokered with US help but has come under new pressure since Britain left the European Union, creating complex questions over how to manage trade over across the border of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. An accord called the Windsor Framework was signed in March to resolve the dispute.
Biden’s visit to other cities
Biden is going to Belfast, then the Irish capital city of Dublin, and the town of Ballina, where his ancestors lived before emigrating to the US in the 19th century.
He was accompanied for the trip by his sister Valerie Biden and son Hunter Biden.
