President Biden arrived in Belfast Tuesday night amid heavy security at the start of a four-day visit to the island of Ireland. The president was greeted by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Belfast International Airport, the BBC reports. Biden plans to spend a day in Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement before crossing into the Republic of Ireland, where his itinerary includes meeting with political leaders and distant relatives. On Wednesday, he will speak at Ulster University in Belfast, where many city center streets were closed off ahead of his arrival. Officials say Biden plans to meet with the leaders of Northern Ireland's five main political parties, though not as a group.
The 1997 peace deal largely ended decades of violence between the British state and paramilitary groups including the Irish Republican Army, though some tensions remain. Last month, the terror threat level in Northern Ireland was raised to "severe," but Biden said it would not affect his plans. Hundreds of police from the British mainland were sent to Belfast as part of a massive security operation leading up to Biden's arrival, the Guardian reports. In Derry, Northern Ireland's second-largest city, police found four suspected pipe bombs Tuesday, a day after dissident republicans clashed with police.
"I look forward to marking the anniversary in Belfast, underscoring the US commitment to preserving peace and encouraging prosperity," Biden said before arriving in the city. In the Republic of Ireland, where the political situation is less fraught, US flag are being raised in Ballina, the town one of Biden's great-great-grandfathers left for the US in 1850, the AP reports. Joe Blewitt, a distant cousin, says Biden visited in 2016 and said he would return as president. "He said, ‘I’m going to come back into Ballina,'" Blewitt says. "And sure to God he’s going to come back into Ballina. His Irish roots are really deep in his heart.” (More President Biden stories.)
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