Biden and Sunak to hold talks in Belfast as US president commemorates Good Friday Agreement

Joe Biden will hold talks with Rishi Sunak this morning after arriving in Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Sunak greeted Mr Biden after Air Force One landed at Belfast International Airport last night for the start of the US president’s four-day visit to the island of Ireland.

The pair will meet later, with Downing Street saying they would discuss “the UK and US’s extensive and deep relationship, evidenced by collaborative UK and US investment in Northern Ireland’s economy and people”.

But it comes amid ongoing paralysis in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont – established in the peace deal in 1998 – with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refusing to re-join the power sharing agreement over the UK government’s Brexit agreement.

Read more:
Peace, hope and paralysis – the agreement’s legacy

The US president will meet the leaders of Northern Ireland’s five main political parties after holding talks with Mr Sunak – but the White House said there will not be a formal group meeting with them all.

Following these meetings, Mr Biden will deliver an address at Ulster University’s new £350m Belfast campus where his remarks will commemorate the Good Friday Agreement – the deal that largely ended 30 years of bloodshed between republicans and loyalists.

Sources told Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates that the president is expected to dangle investment cash for the region during his speech, but only if Stormont is up and running again.

He said: “The implied message to the DUP will be get back into power sharing and the billions will flow. If not, your constituents miss out.”

Mr Sunak will not attend Mr Biden’s keynote speech, with Downing Street on Tuesday denying that the engagement between the pair would be “low-key”.

Speaking to reporters before his departure, Mr Biden said that his top priority was to “make sure the Irish accords and the Windsor Agreement stay in place, keep the peace”.

His son Hunter Biden and sister Valerie Biden Owen are believed to be accompanying him for the trip.

A major security operation will be in place for Mr Biden’s Northern Ireland visit at an estimated cost of £7m.

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Around 300 officers from other parts of the UK will travel to the area to help police a series of events to mark the anniversary.

Mr Biden will travel across the border to Ireland later today where he will tour Carlingford Castle in County Louth, an area to which he has traced his ancestral roots.

Then it’s off to Dublin, where he is expected to visit Irish President Michael D Higgins on Thursday.

Mr Biden will take part in a tree-planting ceremony and ringing of the Peace Bell at the president’s official residence, Aras an Uachtarain.

Following that ceremony, he will meet the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and address the Irish parliament.

A banquet dinner at Dublin Castle will follow on Thursday evening.

The president’s trip will end with a visit to County Mayo on Friday, where he has connected with distant cousins.

A descendant of Irish immigrants to the United States, Mr Biden will deliver remarks at St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, County Mayo, to which his great-great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt sold 27,000 bricks in 1827.

The bricks were used to build the cathedral and their sale helped to fund Mr Blewitt’s passage to the US with his family in 1851.

Read more:
How Irish is Joe Biden?

Biden is invested personally and politically

Dominic Waghorn

International Affairs Editor

@DominicWaghorn

Joe Biden is invested in defending the Good Friday Agreement because it is one of the greatest achievements of American diplomacy of our times – but he cares for personal reasons, too.

The US president is a proud Irish American and is hugely supportive of the cause of peace on the island of Ireland.

He says his Irish ancestry has been a part of his soul for as long as he can remember.

He traces his Irish heritage through his great-great-grandfather – who left Ireland’s potato famine in the nineteenth century.

He is so overtly Irish that critics question his ability to act as an honest broker when it comes to Northern Ireland.

The White House rejects that and insists he plays a crucial role like presidents before him in promoting peace in the land of his forebears.

He comes to the island of Ireland representing his office and will hope to celebrate all that it has achieved in bringing that peace.

In the 1990s President Clinton and his envoy George Mitchell did much of the heavy lifting in the torturous negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement.

Joe Biden is following their path to reaffirm that commitment and help ensure their work is finally done.

The president’s trip comes at an uncertain time for Northern Ireland, where power sharing in Stormont is still on hold and the terror threat has been raised to severe – meaning an attack is highly likely.

Mr Biden’s arrival came hours after four suspected pipe bombs were found by police in a cemetery in Northern Ireland.

Officers sealed off the City Cemetery in Creggan, Derry/Londonderry, on Tuesday following the discovery of a suspicious device.

There were some disturbances on Easter Monday when petrol bombs were thrown at an armoured police Land Rover in Creggan during what police described as an “unnotified” march by dissident republicans.