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Irish PM: Brexit is undermining N. Ireland’s peace accord

By iNFOTEL
November 03 2018 09:28 AM

CP1554433926 — FILE - In this file photo taken on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018, a sign in a parking lot of a cemetery reads: "No EU border in Ireland" near Carrickcarnan, Ireland, just next to the Jonesborough Parish church in Northern Ireland. Britain\'s Brexit chief has met politicians from both sides of Northern Ireland\'s political divide, but there is little sign of a breakthrough on the Irish border impasse that is frustrating divorce talks between the U.K. and the European Union. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab met with the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, and visited the all-but-invisible border between the U.K.\'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.(AP Photo/Lorne Cook, file)

LONDON – Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar says Brexit is undermining Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace by pulling Catholic and Protestant communities apart.

Varadkar said Saturday that “Brexit has undermined the Good Friday Agreement” — the 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Varadkar also told Ireland’s RTE radio that the U.K.’s impending departure from the European Union “is fraying relationships between Britain and Ireland.”

Brexit negotiations have stalled over the issue of the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland.

Both sides agree there must be no customs posts or barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents or undermine Northern Ireland’s peace.

But they haven’t agreed on how to guarantee that — and Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29.

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