Northern Ireland celebrates today without much fanfare 25th anniversary of the peace agreement of Good Friday, which ended three decades of violence, and is preparing to welcome US President Joe Biden, who will visit the country on this occasion.

On April 10, 1998on the day of Good Friday before the Catholic Easter, the democrats, who support reunification with Ireland, and the unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, they were reaching an unlikely peace agreement after intensive negotiations involving London, Dublin and Washington.

The agreement ended three decades of violence that cost the lives of 3,500 peoplebetween the Unionists, mainly Protestants, and the Democrats, mostly Catholics, with the involvement of the British army.

A quarter of a century later, the political deadlock and prevailing security concerns do not lend themselves to celebration.

No major events are planned for today, but many political figures are expected during the week, at the forefront of which is US President Joe Biden, who has Irish roots and arrives in Belfast tomorrow night, Tuesday, where he will be greeted at the airport British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the Northern Irish people,” Rishi Sunak, who was just 17 when the deal was signed, said in a statement.

Political impasse

Sunak said the anniversary is an opportunity “to honor those who made difficult decisions, accepted compromises and demonstrated leadership.”

In the years following the peace agreement, paramilitary groups disarmed, military checkpoints were dismantled and British troops withdrew. Nevertheless the anniversary is celebrated without enthusiasmas peace in Northern Ireland looks more fragile today than it has rarely been since 1998.

Local institutions – created as a result of the deal and supposed to bind communities together – have been paralyzed for more than a year due to disputes linked to the consequences of leaving the European Union.

The unionist party DUP – deeply committed to the province remaining in the United Kingdom – refuses to join the government as long as the post-Brexit provisions (customs controls, application of certain European regulations…) aimed at avoiding the return of a natural border with Ireland.

A renegotiation of the protocol between the EU and the UK, which was supposed to address unionist concerns, has been rejected in recent weeks by the DUP.

In this already difficult context as the anniversary approached, Northern Ireland raised its terror threat level following the attempted assassination of a police officer in February, which was claimed by members of a dissident pro-democracy organisation.

For the arrival of Joe Biden in the province, it is expected to mobilize more than 300 agents who will arrive there from the rest of the United Kingdom.

“International Support”

Although “the last 25 years have had their ups and downs”, admitted Gerry Adams, former leader of the Sinn Féin democrats, “one thing is for sure, we are all in a better place” today.

The Good Friday Agreement, “as we will see during President Biden’s visit this week, continues to enjoy significant international support from our closest allies,” Sunak also reminded.

The prime minister is due to host a “formal dinner” to mark the occasion and attend a celebratory conference at Queen’s University in Belfast. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – whose husband Bill Clinton played a key role in the peace deal when he was US president – is also set to attend the three-day conference.

For his part, Joe Biden wants to take advantage of his visit to “mark the significant progress that has been made since the signing of the agreement” and to remind “the will of the United States to support the great economic potential of Northern Ireland” , according to the White House.

The American president will then go to the Irish Republic, to the capital Dublin, but also to the counties of Louth (east) and Mayo (west), where his ancestors came from, who emigrated in the mid-19th century, escaping, like so many others, from a famine-stricken Ireland, to eventually settle in Pennsylvania.