Johnson hails British ties with US as ‘indestructible’
LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the UK-US relationship as “indestructible” after his first meeting with President Joe Biden before the G7 leaders’ summit opened on Friday.
“It’s a relationship, you can call it the deep and meaningful relationship, whatever you want, the indestructible relationship,” Johnson said in a BBC interview broadcast on Friday. “It’s a relationship that has endured for a very long time, and has been an important part of peace and prosperity both in Europe and around the world.”
During their face-to-face meeting on Thursday, the two leaders discussed “about 25 subjects in some detail”, including the Brexit-induced disruption in Northern Ireland, he said.
Johnson played down the displeasure of Biden, who is proud of his Irish origins, over London’s attempts to reverse the “Northern Ireland Protocol”, which seeks to avoid the return of a border with EU member Ireland but which has disrupted trade between the mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.
Johnson said, “Everybody has a massive interest in making sure that we keep the essential symmetry of the Good Friday Agreement,” which ended three decades of conflict in the Britishruled province. “I think we can sort it out,” he added.
In his meeting with Biden, Johnson also raised the case of UK teenager Harry Dunn, who was killed in a road accident caused by the wife of a US diplomat. She quickly left Britain for the US after the accident, claiming diplomatic immunity.
Biden was “actively engaged in the case”, Johnson said. “He has his own personal reasons for feeling deeply about the issue.” He was referring to Biden losing his first wife and one-year-old daughter in a car crash in 1972.