Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1496971
15 WORLD maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 APRIL 2023 Biden heads to Northern Ireland to mark Good Friday Agreement anniversary US President Joe Biden arrived in Belfast on Tuesday at a delicate political time in Northern Ire- land as he helps mark the 25-year anniversary of a peace deal that largely ended 30 years of blood- shed there. Biden will need to tread care- fully as pro-British unionists loy- al to London continue to boycott the devolved power-sharing gov- ernment that was a fundamental part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it will not drop the year-long boy- cott of the devolved assembly in protest at post-Brexit trade rules without further changes to a deal struck by the United Kingdom and the European Union in Feb- ruary to ease the trade barriers. The DUP has said Biden's visit — the first by a U.S. president in 10 years — will not pressure it to end its protest. Biden was expected to meet representatives from five North- ern Irish parties in advance of his speech at Ulster University but was not planning to pressure them, a senior administration of- ficial said. "The president will have the opportunity to engage with the political parties of Northern Ireland before his speech, and as we've said, he looks forward to continuing to engage them as we work to improve the lives and livelihoods of all communi- ties there," said John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson. Biden, who will float the pos- sibility of closer investment ties between the U.S. and Northern Ireland to try to encourage an end to the impasse, clashed with the British government at times during the Brexit talks, drawing a rebuke from the DUP. "I think the president is anxious that the restoration of the [pow- er-sharing] executive would pave the way for an economic agenda. That would be an important div- idend of the visit," Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin told national broadcaster RTE. Legislative impasse, sporadic violence Biden, who will meet British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on his arrival late on Tuesday and deliver an address at Ulster Uni- versity in Belfast on Wednesday, will use the trip to underscore the United States's readiness to support Northern Ireland's "vast economic potential," the White House said last week. However, the latest political stalemate is set to overshadow the visit and the anniversary of the peace deal the U.S. helped broker between Irish national- ists seeking a united Ireland and pro-British unionists wanting to remain part of the U.K. More than 3,600 people had been killed in the preceding 30 years, mostly by paramilitary groups on both sides such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and pro-British Protestant groups usually known as "loyalists." Some people were also killed by the British army — which had been deployed in 1969 and soon became the target for attacks by the IRA and other republican groups — and local security forc- es. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern joined the partici- pants at Stormont during the fi- nal days of the 1998 negotiations, which were chaired by U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who was dis- patched by then-president Bill Clinton. There is still sporadic violence by small groups opposed to peace and police were attacked with petrol bombs at a parade opposing the agreement in Lon- donderry, also known as Derry, on Monday. Britain's MI5 intelligence agen- cy recently increased the threat level in Northern Ireland from domestic terrorism from "sub- stantial" to "severe" — meaning an attack is highly likely. Biden has Irish ancestry on both the maternal and paternal sides and frequently quotes Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney. He will later spend three days in Ireland where he will address the Parliament in Dublin and vis- it his ancestral homes on either coast. He will meet distant cousins in County Louth on Wednesday and give a public address in the western county of Mayo, where his great-great-grandfather Ed- ward Blewitt grew up, before de- parting on Friday. "Since [John F.] Kennedy there hasn't been as Irish American a president as Joe Biden and we're really looking forward to wel- coming him home," Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Sunday. A police vehicle is shown after it was hit with petrol bombs on Monday in Londonderry, also known as Derry