American grit was essential to bringing the warring factions of Northern Ireland to peace with the Good Friday Agreement 25 years ago.

President

joe

Biden arrives in Belfast on Tuesday to celebrate that birthday, but few expect him to solve a new political crisis that has shaken the peace deal and put the Northern Ireland government on hold.

In Belfast, Biden will meet British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on a trip to Northern Ireland, whose main purpose, the president said as he boarded Air Force One, was to keep the peace.

But he has not visited Stormont, the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It has been suspended since the Democratic Unionist Party, which formed one half of a power-sharing government, walked out a year ago over a post-Brexit trade dispute.

The President will spend less than 24 hours in Northern Ireland before traveling on to the Republic of Ireland, where he will address the Parliament of Dublin, attend a gala banquet and visit a series of ancestral homesteads in the east and west of the country during a three-day trip. – day visit.

Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queens University Belfast, said Biden’s visit is an acknowledgment that the peace process is out of place, but (also) a reminder of the achievements of the past 25 years.

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President Biden continues in a long tradition of US presidents who have remained interested in the Northern Ireland peace process, she said. They see themselves as co-guarantors of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, which means they are particularly keen to see the British-Irish relationship be good and close.

US intervention played a key role in ending Northern Ireland’s Troubles, three decades of violence that left 3,600 people dead.

Former US Senator George Mitchell oversaw nearly two years of talks in the 1990s to end the bloodshed involving Irish republican and British loyalist militant groups and British troops. President

Account

Clinton persuaded

and cajoled

reluctant Northern Irish politicians to a compromise.

Even on the night of the deal, he was on the phone a number of times urging participants to do the right thing and find that elusive deal, said Daniel Mulhall, a former Irish ambassador to the US and UK.

The Against the Chance Agreement signed on 10 April 1998 required armed groups to stop fighting, ended direct rule by the UK and established a Northern Ireland legislature and government with power that was shared between British unionist and Irish nationalist parties.

Britain and EU announce deal to end long-running trade over Northern Ireland late

That peace has largely been preserved, allowing a generation to grow up without widespread violence and Northern Ireland’s economy to grow after years of stagnation. But the power-sharing government has collapsed several times amid ongoing disruptions between the parties.

Small armed dissident groups continue to carry out occasional attacks. On Tuesday, police found four suspected pipe bombs in a cemetery in Londonderry, near where youths threw petrol bombs and set fire to a police car on Easter Monday.

Britain’s departure from the European Union left Northern Ireland uneasy between the rest of the UK and EU member Ireland, and put greater strain on the peace deal.

To maintain an invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, a key pillar of the peace process, new customs controls were imposed on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. The United Kingdom.

After much bickering, Britain and the EU reached an agreement in February to lift many of those checks, an agreement welcomed by the US, which had urged London and Brussels to end their post-Brexit feud. However, the DUP believes it does not go far enough and refuses to return to government.

Sunak spokesman Jamie Davies insisted on Tuesday that the British government is still aiming to get Stormont up and running again as soon as possible, but it is far from clear how that will happen. A growing number of people are arguing that power-sharing needs to be reformed to reflect a society where more than 40% of people now identify as neither nationalist nor unionist.

The Brexit crisis pushes Northern Ireland to the brink of new elections

For now, the British government is focusing its energies on economic growth rather than a political breakthrough. Sunak has scheduled a Northern Ireland investment summit for September to build on the

1.5 billion pounds (

$1.9 billion

)

American companies have been investing in Northern Ireland for the past decade.

The UK government notes that Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status puts it in a unique economic position: it is part of the UK, but also has close links to the EU’s internal market. Brexit opponents note with bitterness that the UK as a whole walked away from single market membership by leaving the bloc.

Biden has appointed Joe Kennedy III, a scion of the Irish-American political dynasty, as his special trade envoy to Northern Ireland.

Mulhall said this reflects a recognition by US authorities “that one of the things they can bring to the party is the economic dividend that US investment in Northern Ireland brings.

In terms of breaking the political deadlock, Mulhall said it’s always positive to get a US president involved.

But I wouldn’t expect him to get into the weeds,” he said.

They want the violence of the past to stay in the past.

Lawless reported from London