President Joe Biden said Monday that he plans to accept an invitation from U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to visit Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought a formal end to decades of conflict.
The president said it’s his “intention to go” to both Northern Ireland and Ireland after the British leader made the offer at a meeting in San Diego on Monday, according to a White House transcript.
“I know it’s something that’s very special and personal to you,” Sunak told Biden, who is partially of Irish descent. “We’d love to have you over.”
Signed on April 10, 1998, the Good Friday Agreement — also referred to as the Belfast Agreement — aimed to cease a violent, decadeslong conflict known as the Troubles between unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to stay part of the U.K., and nationalists, who hoped for it to become part of the Republic of Ireland, according to the BBC. Violence during the Troubles led to the…
