N. Ireland party leader pans Nancy Pelosi in warning on Brexit terms

LONDON－The Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is facing criticism from the leader of Northern Ireland's biggest unionist party after saying the US Congress will not approve a trade deal with the United Kingdom if Britain scraps the agreement governing post-Brexit trade on the Irish island.

The trans-Atlantic sparring follows British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government announcing its intention to introduce legislation that would allow it to unilaterally suspend the Northern Ireland Protocol, an international agreement between Britain and the European Union.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with an EU member state, the Republic of Ireland, and required special attention when the UK withdrew from the EU.

The protocol is designed to preserve the Northern Ireland peace process, but unionists complain it has created a trade barrier between the province and the rest of the UK.

Pelosi said late last week that Britain's actions threatened to undermine the 1998 Good Friday Accords that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. She called for "good-faith negotiations" to resolve any differences over the protocol.

"As I have stated in my conversations with the prime minister, the foreign secretary and members of the House of Commons, if the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords, the Congress cannot and will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United Kingdom," Pelosi said.

Later on Friday Ireland's Prime Minister Micheal Martin urged the UK to stand by its post-Brexit trade commitments in Northern Ireland.

Johnson's spokesman, Jamie Davies, said the UK remains committed to reaching an agreement with the EU and has invited the bloc's Brexit chief, Maros Sefcovic, for talks.

"We welcome that the US shares our deep commitment to the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and the peace process and has urged the EU to show flexibility," Davies said.

Jeffrey Donaldson, an MP and leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, said the protocol itself is undermining the peace process because it threatens the key principles of the Good Friday Accords, also known as the Belfast Agreement.

Basis of consensus

The agreement created a power-sharing arrangement in Northern Ireland that operates on the basis of consensus between nationalist parties that seek closer ties with Ireland and unionist parties that want to maintain Northern Ireland's historic links with the UK. That consensus no longer exists because unionists in the Northern Ireland Assembly oppose the protocol.

"If Nancy Pelosi wants to see the agreement protected, then she needs to recognize that it is the protocol that is harming and undermining the agreement," Donaldson said. "And that is why we need to deal with it."

In a historic shift at the ballot box, the nationalist party Sinn Fein came in first in the vote for the Northern Ireland Assembly this month. But the Democratic Unionist Party has refused to take part in a new power-sharing government in Northern Ireland until differences over the protocol are resolved.

Agencies Via Xinhua