The Northern Irish Police (PSNI) has deployed a strong security device before the arrival this Tuesday in Belfast of the US president, Joe Bidenat the start of a few-hour visit to the region to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement.
The forces of order have already cordoned off several areas in the center of the capital to prevent the passage of vehicles and control pedestrian traffic, while they have reinforced their presence on the streets with additional troops brought in from other parts of the United Kingdom.
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The security measures will be in effect until Wednesday at noon, when Joe Biden He plans to leave for Dublin to continue his four-day tour of the island in the Republic of Ireland.
What time will Joe Biden arrive in Belfast?
Biden, of Irish origin, will arrive at Belfast International Airport shortly after 20:00 GMT today and will be received there by the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
On Wednesday, both leaders will hold a bilateral meeting and, later, the president will give a speech on the new campus of the University of Ulster, in the Northern Irish capital, in an intervention to which the main political leaders of the region are also invited.
It is unclear, however, whether Biden will have contacts, either collectively or individually, with Northern Irish politicians, whose divisions over the Brexit The Government of shared power between nationalists and unionists has been suspended for more than a year, which is overshadowing the anniversary of the peace agreement.
Tony Blair spoke of the arrival of Joe Biden
In this regard, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blairone of the main architects of that pact, celebrated Biden’s visit today, but warned that US influence on the peace process must be used with “care and tact.”
“There is a difference between influencing and pressing, and the former can be positive and the latter negative”, Blair told BBC 4 radio, referring to calls by Biden for the second party Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to lift its veto on Brexit trade deals for the region and agree to form a government with the nationalists.
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Likewise, the US president has been characterized in recent years by his rejection of this divorce and is seen as a politician closer to Dublin than to London, both because of his geopolitical vision and because of his deep Irish roots.
“What I learned about unionists is that if you pressure them to do something that they fundamentally disagree with,that pressure is usually useless, even if it comes from the United States, so they should use that influence carefully,” Blair said.