Former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair has described Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland as “significant” as the US president is due to arrive on Tuesday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
The ex-Labour leader spoke of the importance of using “the American influence on the process with care and with sensitivity” adding “there’s a difference between influencing and pressurising and the one tends to be positive and the other can be negative”.
Mr Biden is expected to meet members of Stormont’s main political parties as part of a visit he said will underscore his nation’s “commitment to preserving peace and encouraging prosperity” in Northern Ireland.
Mr Blair told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Well, it is significant. You’ve got to use the American influence on the process with care and with sensitivity.
“I obviously had a very close relationship with President Clinton outside of the peace process, but I found him immensely helpful.
“He would immediately understand strategically what was important and what wasn’t and the Americans can play an important part of this, but you’ve just got to be, you’ve got to insert them at the right moment and in the right place.”
He added: “I don’t know what the up-to-date situation is with President Biden and our Prime Minister now, but for me at that time and actually also afterwards with President Bush who came to Northern Ireland and was actually extremely helpful at a crucial moment in the peace process.
“The Americans can play a real role but it’s something that you need to do carefully because there’s a difference between influencing and pressurising and the one tends to be positive and the other can be negative.”
He went on: “One thing I learned about the unionist is if you try and pressurise them to do something that they’re fundamentally in disagreement with, it’s usually futile pressure, even if it comes from the US, so you’ve got to use that influence carefully.”
The Good Friday Agreement negotiations he said were a “rollercoaster”, but characterised by an “overwhelming sense of desire to succeed”.
He said: “It was an exhausting three days or more and the most intense negotiation I’ve ever been involved in and my deepest recollection was just the rollercoaster of it because sometimes it looked like the deal was on and sometimes it looked like it was off and then it only really came together literally in the moments before we announced it …
“There was this overwhelming sense of desire to succeed because had we failed, it would have been a very humiliating and public failure.”
He added: “We don’t have the executive up and running at the moment, we want that and the agreement should be reviewed over time.
“The only thing is, if you’re going to review it, whatever comes out of the review will only work if it brings the communities together.”
Mr Biden will also travel to the Republic.
