Updated at 13:50
US President Joe Biden expressed hopes of a return to powersharing in Northern Ireland as he insisted stable devolved government could deliver an economic windfall for the region.
In a keynote address at Ulster University in Belfast, Mr Biden praised the work of the UK and EU to strike the Windsor Framework on post-Brexit trading arrangements.
The President’s visit to Northern Ireland comes on the heels of the 25th anniversary of the landmark Good Friday peace accord that created Stormont’s power-sharing institutions.
The DUP, which is currently blocking those institutions in protest at Brexit trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has said the framework does not go far enough to address its concerns over sovereignty.
Mr Biden met with Stormont’s political leaders before making the speech at the university’s new campus in Belfast city centre.
Earlier, he had a 45-minute meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at a Belfast hotel.
“As a friend, I hope it’s not too presumptuous for me to say that I believe the democratic institutions established in Good Friday Agreement remain critical for the future of Northern Ireland,” said the President.
“It’s a decision for you to make, not for me to make, but it seems to me they are related. An effective devolved government that reflects the people of Northern Ireland and is accountable to them, a government that works to find ways through hard problems together, is going to draw even greater opportunity in this region.
“So, I hope the assembly and the executive will soon be restored. That’s a judgement for you to make, not me, but I hope it happens, along with the institutions that facilitate north-south and east west relations, all of which are vital pieces of the Good Friday Agreement.
“For in politics, no matter what divides us, if we look hard enough, there are always areas that’s going to bring us together if we look hard enough. Standing for peace and rejecting political violence must be one of those things."
Profound impact
Biden also said the “dividends of peace are all around us”, as he addressed a gathering at the Ulster University campus in Belfast.
“This very campus is situated at an intersection where conflict and bloodshed once held a terrible sway,” he said.
“The idea to have a glass building here when I was here in ’91 was highly unlikely.
“Where barbed wire once sliced up the city, today we find a cathedral of learning built of glass and let the light shine in and out.
“This has a profound impact for someone who has come back to see it.
“It's an incredible testament to the power and the possibilities of peace.”
Joe Biden spoke of how compassion “had changed how this entire region sees itself”, as he called for a recommittal to peace in Northern Ireland.
He told an audience at Ulster University: “This place is transformed by peace, made technicolour by peace, made whole by peace."
Earlier in the day, Biden said he was there to “listen” as he had a cup of tea with British prime minister Rishi Sunak.
The White House said he would use the trip to reaffirm support for the Good Friday Agreement, 25 years after the peace deal was reached, and to encourage the restoration of powersharing – something that collapsed due to the DUP’s protest over post-Brexit rules.
Hello, Northern Ireland!
It's so great to be back. pic.twitter.com/A4PjLONoic— President Biden (@POTUS) April 12, 2023
At the meeting with Mr Sunak in a Belfast hotel, Mr Biden faced a volley of questions from reporters – including if he had a message for Northern Irish parties and why he was not discussing a trade deal while on his visit to the UK.
But he declined to answer, instead commenting on the “heck of a view” from the upper floors of the Grand Central Hotel.
Mr Sunak, smiling, sat a table with the US President as the pair met over cups of tea.
Mr Biden, who is intensely proud of his Irish ancestry, has been criticised by senior DUP figures, with MP Sammy Wilson claiming the president “has got a record of being pro-Republican, anti-Unionist, anti-British” while former first minister Baroness Foster has suggested he “hates the UK”.
But the suggestion he was anti-British was rejected by Amanda Sloat, senior director for Europe at the US National Security Council, who said: “It’s simply untrue – the fact that the president is going to be engaging for the third time in three months, and then again next month and then again in June, with the prime minister of the UK shows how close our co-operation is with the UK.
“And before that, the president had numerous calls and meeting with prime minister Johnston, and prime minister Truss as well.”
Ms Sloat went on: “President Biden obviously is a very proud Irish-American, he is proud of those Irish roots, but he is also a strong supporter of our bilateral partnership with the UK, and not only on a bilateral basis within Nato, the G7, on the UN Security Council, and we truly are working in lockstep with the British Government on all of the pressing global challenges that our countries are facing.”
