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US President Joe Biden is in Northern Ireland on Wednesday to help mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of armed conflict, as a new political crisis tests the strength of that peace. Watch his speech at Belfast’s Ulster University live at 2pm Paris time (GMT+2).
Click on the player above to watch the speech live on FRANCE 24.
On his first presidential visit to Northern Ireland, Biden was stressing that American investment can help fuel economic growth – especially if the fractious politicians in Belfast resolve a new political crisis that has rattled the Good Friday peace deal and put Northern Ireland’s government on pause.
In a speech at Ulster University’s new campus in downtown Belfast, the US president was expected to focus on “Northern Ireland’s vast economic potential,” said Amanda Sloat, the Democratic president’s top adviser on European affairs.
She said Biden would talk about “how the last 25 years were focused on peace but the next 25 years should be marked by growth and economic prosperity”.
US involvement was key to negotiating the Good Friday accord, which largely ended decades of sectarian violence that killed 3,600 people. While that peace has endured, Northern Ireland is currently without a functioning government.
Stormont, the seat of its assembly, has been suspended since the Democratic Unionist Party, which formed half of a power-sharing government, walked out a year ago over a post-Brexit trade dispute.
After much wrangling, Britain and the EU struck a deal in February to address the tensions over trade, an agreement welcomed by the US. The Democratic Unionist Party, though, says the Windsor Framework doesn’t go far enough and has refused to return to government.
>> Read more: Sunak’s ‘seismic’ deal resolves N. Ireland border problem – but DUP support remains elusive
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
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