The first day of Joe Biden's visit to Ireland kicked off this morning, with a walk among thronged sympathizers and armored security devices in Belfast, in British Ulster, where the American president is planning a speech for the 25th anniversary of the historic agreement during the day Irish peace treaty of Good Friday 1998.
Biden greeted by British Prime Minister Sunak upon arrival in Belfast
The speech was preceded by a face-to-face between Biden and the British premier Rishi Sunak, who received him on his arrival yesterday evening, extended to follow in the presence of local leaders of the various parties - Protestant unionists, Catholic republicans or inter-religious - of Northern Ireland.
Instead, no visit to the Stormont parliament, where local political bodies are paralyzed by months of stalemate linked to disagreements between unionists and republicans on post-Brexit agreements.
From the unionist front there was no lack of controversy over the duration of a visit in which the US president (of southern Irish family roots) will stay in Ulster for only a few hours, and then move to the Republic of Ireland for a good three days (from tonight until April 14) and devoting himself both to political meetings with the leaders of Dublin and to a tour of the counties of origin of his father's and mother's ancestors.
Sources in the White House have underlined Biden's commitment to unreservedly support both peace and the economy of Northern Ireland, decisively denying that he has inherited any prejudice with Irish blood, much less "hatred against United Kingdom".
Biden then stressed that peace in Northern Ireland "was not inevitable", it was the result of a hard negotiating effort and those who engaged in it.
And it celebrated 25 years of the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement at Ulster University as a historic achievement.
Biden praised the mediation conducted then by US Senator George Mitchell recalling his words on the negotiations: "700 days of failures and one of success".
He then reiterated that protecting that agreement remains "a priority" for the US, promising new economic support to Ulster: "Peace and economic opportunities go together".