Washington (AFP) - US President Joe Biden took off from Washington on Tuesday for a trip to Northern Ireland and Ireland, where he will mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace deal -- and celebrate his family roots.
Air Force One departed Joint Base Andrews for Belfast, where Biden will be greeted by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Before boarding the plane, Biden told reporters that the main priority of his trip was to make sure the "Irish accords and the Windsor agreement stay in place."
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement forged a political power sharing deal between the pro-independence Catholic forces in Northern Ireland and the Protestant British loyalists wanting the province to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The landmark deal was brokered with US help but has come under new strains since Britain exited the European Union, triggering complex questions over how to manage trade over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.An arrangement called the Windsor Framework was struck in March to resolve that dispute.
Biden is visiting Belfast, then the Irish capital Dublin and also the northwestern town of Ballina where his ancestors lived before emigrating to the United States in the 19th century.
He was accompanied on Air Force One for the trip by his sister Valerie Biden and son Hunter Biden.
