Biden and Sunak discuss peace process, economy and war in Ukraine

US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he is in Northern Ireland to "listen" and support the peace process in the British province, which is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement with the institutions of self-government suspended. 

The Democratic leader made these statements to the television cameras present at the start of a meeting in a Belfast hotel with the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, which lasted just over 30 minutes, during which they drank tea and discussed various issues, according to the White House. 

There was no joint press conference afterwards and the president headed to the new campus of the University of Ulster, his only public event in the region, to deliver a speech on the progress of 25 years of peace and investment opportunities in the Ulster economy. 

US administration sources explained that Biden and Sunak did not address the issue of a free trade agreement between London and Washington, one of the British government's post-Brexit goals, after a British spokesman had already cooled the prospect of a rapprochement in the short term. 

In a meeting with the media in Belfast, the US National Security Council's director for Europe, Amanda Sloat, said that the two leaders discussed "various economic issues", the situation in Northern Ireland and the war in Ukraine. 

Sloat insisted that the president would like to see Northern Ireland's institutions of government restored, but specified that the "main focus" of his visit is to celebrate the Good Friday agreement, the text that put an end to the conflict. 

In this sense, it is expected that Biden, of Irish origin, will use the incentive of US investment in the region to urge the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the second largest party, to return to the power-sharing government, which has been suspended for more than a year. 

The DUP refuses to enter an Executive led by the nationalist Sinn Féin, the leading force, because of its rejection of the post-Brexit trade arrangements for the province, agreed by London and Brussels in the Windsor Framework Agreement. 

According to the White House, before leaving for Dublin today at 13.20 GMT, Biden will also "have the opportunity to interact" with "each" of the leaders of the five main regional parties, although there will be "no formal group meeting", as a result of their differences over Brexit.