US President Joe Biden said he had accepted an invitation from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to visit Northern Ireland in April to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely ended political violence there, Reuters reports.
At the summit to launch the next phase of the AUKUS defense agreement between the United States, Australia, and Great Britain, Sunak asked Biden if he would attend the celebrations.
“I look forward to our talks and, importantly, to inviting you to Northern Ireland, hopefully, you will be able to attend to mark the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement,” Sunak said at the start of a bilateral meeting at the military base of the US Navy Point Loma in San Diego.
“I know it’s something very special and personal for you. We’d love to have you with us,” assured Sunak.
Biden replied that he intended to “visit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland”.
The Good Friday Agreement was a peace agreement that largely ended the “Trouble Times” – three decades of violence that had rocked Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was signed on April 10, 1998, partially brokered by the US government of then-President Bill Clinton.
However, the anniversary has been overshadowed in recent months after Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party boycotted the power-sharing assembly that was part of the peace deal in protest at post-Brexit trade rules that treated the province differently from the rest of the country. part of Great Britain.
