A FORMER member of Bill Clinton's administration has insisted US president Joe Biden is sincere in his attempts to "reach out as a friend" to the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Belfast-based Irish American businessman Frank Costello, whose links to the Democratic Party go back to President John F Kennedy's brother Ted Kennedy, said he is concerned at what he believes is a misinterpretation of President Biden's latest intervention.
Some commentators have labelled US entreaties to Prime Minister Boris Johnson not to let the continuing Protocol row threaten the Good Friday Agreement at risk as a "rebuke".
"The president's continued expressions of concern are clearly that of a friend reaching out to the British government and the British people as well as a friend to Ireland to resolve these unnecessary tensions," Mr Costello said.
"The United States continues to view the importance of resolving the Protocol issue so that it does not cut across what is an international agreement - that the US also is part of - in the interest of all communities in Northern Ireland as well as the special relationship of these islands to the US.
"... This must be seen as the intervention of a friend reaching out to a friend - in this case the British government - to work with the EU in a very focused way so that all parties can resolve what needs to be done to make the Protocol work with the least difficulties possible since it was part of the Brexit agreement as formulated by the British government and the EU."
