No agreement on Irish border
DUBLIN: As Britain’s exit from the European Union grows closer with no agreement reached on the Irish border, many in Ireland fear that proBrexit British politicians have forgotten the bombs and bullets of three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland and fail to grasp how high the stakes are for the entire island.
London, Dublin and Brussels want to avoid the return of a ‘‘hard’’ border the Britishrun province and Ireland that existed before a 1998 peace accord brought a tenuous end to ‘‘The Troubles’’ in Northern Ireland — sectarian violence that cost about 3600 lives, many of them civilians.
The 500km frontier was marked by British army checkpoints, frequently targeted by IRA gunmen. Belfast and other cities were scarred by riots, shootings and bomb attacks.
British lawmakers who demand an open border but no customs union with the EU sent Prime Minister Theresa May back to Brussels this week to renegotiate the socalled back stop provision in her Brexit agreement — a scenario Brussels rejects as incompatible.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said in a speech: ‘‘It is vitally important that politicians in Westminster understand the overwhelming wish across society in Northern Ireland not to return to the borders and division of times past.’’