By Tayfun Salci and Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland
As the U.K.’s future is still full of Brexit-related uncertainties with less than a year remaining to end the country’s decades-long membership to the EU, Northern Ireland is struggling with its own uncertainties as it is marking the 20th anniversary of a peace agreement that ended the 30-year-long sectarian violence.
A two-story building situated on the 499-km border that separates Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland is looking for new tenants with a rental sign attached to its door.
The locals are worried about the possibility of the building’s first tenants returning after two decades. The building is currently nothing but a checkpoint that lost its function when a peace deal was struck to put an end to a bloody war between the Catholic Irish nationalists defending the idea of a united Ireland and the pro-British Protestant loyalists demanding to keep Northern Ireland as British territory.
The building sits on the border between the Cosquin village and the Bridge End village on Buncrana Road that connects the city of Londonderry (Derry) to Ireland via the N13 motorway.
Anadolu Agency travelled to the northwestern city of Londonderry -- known as Derry by its Irish-majority nationalist population -- at the invitation of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), hosted by Visit Belfast and supported by Tourism Ireland.
Derry was the scene of an infamous massacre in January 1972, when members of Britain’s elite Parachute Regiment shot 27 unarmed people during a civil rights protest. Fourteen of the victims later died.
The killings accelerated Northern Ireland’s descent into conflict, with Irish republicans fighting the British government and pro-British paramilitaries.
The future of the border has been in the limelight since the 2016 referendum, in which 52 percent of British voters opted for leaving the EU, as it is the only land border between the U.K. and the bloc.
The issue has been kicked into the long grass during the Brexit negotiations so far, but even though all parties have constantly maintained that they are against a hard border on the island of Ireland, a final solution on how to form a mechanism to check the customs is still to be formulized.
The locals on both sides of the border, however, fear a future reintroduction of checkpoints, which were one of the main targets during the period, known as the Troubles.
Today, this unique border can only be noticed with the change of miles to kilometers on road signs, and with yellow lanes becoming white, yet it has the potential of engendering problems with the introduction of stricter checks once Brexit is complete.
Many locals are concerned about a future with a hard border, as they think such a move could mean the revival of the divisions between the Catholic and Protestant societies in Northern Ireland.
- 1998 Belfast Agreement
The Troubles ended in 1998 after the Belfast Agreement put an end to decades of armed struggle in the divided U.K. region of Northern Ireland.
The U.K. and the Republic of Ireland inked the deal, brokered by the U.S. and eight political parties in Northern Ireland, on 10 April 1998.
The deal -- dubbed the ‘Good Friday agreement’ -- largely saw the end of the Troubles-era violence, in which more than 3,500 people lost their lives.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who played a major role in the negotiations 20 years ago, is expected to join the celebrations in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.
Former prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, as well as another key figure, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, will be attending a conference in Belfast about the 20th anniversary of the agreement.
- Power-sharing government
The Good Friday Agreement set a new power-sharing governance model in the region, and an executive body jointly formed by the two biggest unionist and loyalist political parties lead the country now. It also foresees a direct rule from Westminster in the event of a failure to reach a power-sharing deal.
The previous administration in the U.K. region had collapsed with the resignation of its Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in January 2017 over a botched energy-saving deal called RHI.
McGuinness, a key Sinn Fein figure, died shortly after his resignation and was buried after a high-profile funeral.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lost support in the March 2 elections but managed to remain the biggest party, with a mere single-seat margin in the Northern Ireland Assembly over Sinn Fein.
But the DUP performed strongly in the U.K. general election in June 2017. In an unprecedented political development, it has become a vital source of support for the U.K.’s Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May.
However, the talks between Sinn Fein and the DUP have so far failed to form a new power-sharing government. The latest round of talks collapsed in February, leaving the region with no Executive almost a year after the election.
A number of issues, such as recognition of the Irish language and the legacy of violence during the 1968-1998 Troubles era, further sour the relations between the pro-British DUP and Sinn Fein.
