Trump says he would ‘love’ to see a united Ireland
"It's going to happen eventually", the U.S. president said in Dublin during a golf-focused trip to the long-divided island.
DUBLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump commented on the potential unification of Ireland during a golf-focused visit to the country on Saturday. Sitting next to Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin after a flight from Washington, Trump expressed his desire to see the island united, a prospect that would be unacceptable to Northern Ireland's British unionists.
The President questioned why Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom after the rest of Ireland gained independence over a century ago, had not yet joined the Republic. Trump stated, "I'd love to see it unified. I think it'd be great. A great feather in everybody's cap if that happened. It's going to happen eventually."
He also suggested that the current U.K. would have something to say about the matter, but ultimately believed it would be a positive development. The conflict over Northern Ireland's constitutional future has resulted in nearly 3,700 deaths over three decades, a conflict largely settled by the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
This peace deal stipulated that Northern Ireland would remain a separate part of the U.K. as long as the majority of its voters supported this arrangement, a position that has remained unchanged over the years since the agreement.
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- Trump says he would 'love' to see a united Ireland channelnewsasia.com
