London, Thanasis Gavos

The American presidential plane Air Force One landed at Belfast International Airport at around 9.20 pm local time, carrying Joe Biden at the start of his four-day visit to the island of Ireland.

The American President was welcomed in the corridor of the airport by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak.

The two leaders will meet on Wednesday. President Biden will also meet on Wednesday with the leaders of the major Northern Irish parties and address an event at the University of Ulster.

He will then proceed to the Republic of Ireland where he will remain until Friday night. He will meet with the country’s state and political leadership, address parliament and visit the two birthplaces of his Irish ancestors in counties Louth and Mayo.

Biden’s visit comes on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement that ended decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

It is also expected to encourage all parties to work towards the re-operation of the Stormond local parliament in Northern Ireland. The devolved legislature has been suspended for more than a year after the DUP withdrew from a coalition government under the peace deal. The Democratic Unionist Party left due to disagreements with the Northern Ireland Protocol as part of the Brexit deal.

The presidential trip is under tight security, especially after the recent upgrade of the terror threat level in Northern Ireland to ‘severe’.

On the eve of the visit, there were new incidents between republican demonstrators and police in Londonderry, where four improvised bombs were also found in a cemetery on Tuesday afternoon.