Northern Ireland celebrates this Monday the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday agreement, between strong security measures due to the terrorist threat from dissidents of the now inactive IRA and the visit of US President Joe Biden, a staunch defender of the peace process .
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Biden, of Irish origin, and the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, will arrive in Belfast on Tuesday afternoon to commemorate for two days the historic pact signed on April 10, 1998, the text that put an end to a conflict that caused more of 3,500 dead for almost 30 years.
The White House plans to provide more details about the Democratic president’s program on Monday, although local sources have already confirmed that he will possibly deliver a speech on Wednesday at the new campus of the University of Ulster, in the Northern Irish capital.
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Biden, who will not be accompanied by the first lady, Jill, will travel to Dublin on Wednesday to continue his four-day tour of the island in the Republic of Ireland.
The president does not plan to visit Stormont Castle, the seat of the Northern Irish Autonomous Assembly and whose power-sharing government has been suspended for more than a year due to the rejection of pro-British unionism to the Brexit arrangements for the region.
From some sectors, this absence, as well as the apparent scarcity of events scheduled in Belfast, is interpreted as a sign of the strained relations that Washington and London supposedly maintain.
In fact, Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland generates more enthusiasm among the pro-Irish nationalist community than in the Protestant unionist, while the local media talk about a rarefied climate between the UK and US governments. management of Brexit, especially during Boris Johnson’s tenure.
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The American president has been characterized in recent years by his rejection of this divorce and is seen as a politician closer and more akin to Dublin than to London.
Likewise, it has recently pressured Northern Irish politicians to agree to the formation of a joint Executive, which is interpreted by unionism as an attempt to interfere in the affairs of the British province.
The Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Micheál Martin, has denied that there are tensions and recalled that “people envy” the president’s “commitment” to “the entire island of Ireland.”
“I think his visit to Northern Ireland is a sign of his genuine commitment to the citizenship of Northern Ireland,” Martin said.
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Biden’s passage through the region has led the Autonomous Police (PSNI) to design the “greatest security device” in almost 10 years, which is estimated to cost public coffers about 8 million euros, after the reinforcement of the anti-terrorism measures and the arrival of an additional 300 troops from the rest of the United Kingdom.
In this sense, the forces of order have reported that they have “reliable intelligence information” on plans by dissident Republican groups to attack on Easter Monday.
The “number two” of the Police, Bobby Singleton, has indicated that the information comes from the very communities where divisions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) still operate, opposed to the peace process.
Easter Monday is a highly symbolic date for pro-Irish republicanism, as it commemorates the 1916 Easter Rising, the rebellion against British occupation that laid the foundation for the UK’s subsequent war of independence.
Specifically, the PSNI has expressed concern about the events scheduled in Derry (west) since they could lead to riots, such as those that occurred in that town in 2019 and that resulted in the murder of the journalist Lyra McKee.
“We are really concerned that there are attempts to involve the police in serious public disorder and use the situation as a platform to also launch terrorist attacks against officers,” Singleton said.
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The British Government already raised the level of the terrorist threat in Northern Ireland from “considerable” to “serious” last March due to the danger of actions by republican dissidents.
This increase implies that the British MI5 (internal) secret services consider an attack in Northern Ireland “very likely”, after a police officer was recently shot by the New IRA, another nationalist faction.
EFE
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