Joe Biden arrived Tuesday in Belfast, where he comes to celebrate twenty-five years of peace in Northern Ireland and try to revive the political dialogue, blocked for more than a year. The US president, who was greeted on arrival by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, will spend only a few hours in the British province.

He will then leave for the Republic of Ireland, until Friday, in the footsteps of these maternal ancestors of which he is so proud. But before this very sentimental part of his trip, it is a more delicate stage that awaits in Belfast the American president, who came accompanied by Joe Kennedy, his special envoy for Northern Ireland, and a descendant of the most famous Irish-American political line.

Informal meeting on Wednesday

With this visit to the British province scarred by the bloody decades of the "Troubles", Joe Biden signals the attention he pays to the peace process but also more recently to the political tensions shaking Northern Ireland. His priority will be to "keep the peace," he said before taking off from Washington aboard Air Force One.

The US president is due to meet Wednesday, in an informal way, the leaders of the main political parties of Northern Ireland, while the institutions of the British province have not functioned for more than a year.

On April 10, 1998, the day that year of Good Friday before Easter, the Republicans in favor of reunification with Ireland and the unionists attached to remaining within the United Kingdom won an unexpected peace agreement after intense negotiations involving London, Dublin and Washington.

The agreement ended three decades of violence that left 3,500 dead, between unionists, mostly Protestants, and republicans mostly Catholic, with the involvement of the British army. A quarter of a century later, no celebration, but an anniversary marked by incidents targeting police in the border city of Londonderry.

Paralysis

Rishi Sunak stressed Monday that the anniversary of the agreement was an opportunity to "celebrate those who made difficult decisions, accepted compromises and showed leadership." The time does not really seem to be a compromise in the province, where the institutions -- created following the agreement and supposed to unite communities -- have been paralyzed for more than a year because of disagreements related to Brexit.

The DUP Unionist Party, deeply attached to the province's membership of the United Kingdom, is demanding changes to the post-Brexit provisions that aim to avoid any physical border with the Republic of Ireland, and refuses to participate in local government until then.

The issue has been closely watched in Washington in recent years and Joe Biden has never hidden that he would oppose London going back on its international commitments to satisfy the unionists. The British government recently reached a compromise with the Europeans, officially called the "Windsor Framework", but the DUP remains inflexible.

The US president will have a meeting Wednesday morning with Rishi Sunak, before giving a speech at Ulster University in Belfast, a city placed under high security with police reinforcements from all over the United Kingdom. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in power in 1998, warned on the BBC that any American influence must be "cautious and sensitive" with unionists.

Visiting family

Once the Northern Irish part of his visit is over, the US president is due to visit the Republic of Ireland on Wednesday.

Joe Biden's family emigrated in the mid-nineteenth century, fleeing famine-ravaged Ireland like so many others, eventually settling in Pennsylvania. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, such a narrative resonates with many voters aspiring to the American dream.

Biden is scheduled to meet Thursday with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and President Michael D. Higgins. He will also address Irish parliamentarians. To conclude his visit, he will travel to the western town of Ballina, where other of his Irish ancestors come from, and deliver a speech in front of the cathedral.

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