The Belfast agreement is also called the good friday agreement because it was signed on good friday 1998. According to a report, in advance of the agreement as negotiations intensified a senior unionist leader warned the irish government that northern Ireland faced the threat of civil war with the potential for loyalist attacks to be mounted in Dublin if the proposed agreement stalled. Reportedly, the deputy leader of the Ulster unionist party delivered a briefing to an irish embassy official on the threats.
According to a report, the language of the agreement reflects the uk’s change of emphasis from unionism to a united Ireland, but that northern Ireland would remain part of the uk unless the majority of people in both the north and the south wished otherwise. Reportedly, the agreement asserts the right of self determination for both the north and the south to bring about a united Ireland, which must be agreed and exercised subject to the agreement.
According to reports, the agreement created a number of institutions between southern and northern Ireland, one being that the police service northern Ireland and the irish police would work in partnership. Reportedly, it established the northern Ireland assembly and the north south ministerial council, a body established to coordinate activity and exercise certain government powers across the whole of Ireland. According to reports, the north south ministerial council and the northern Ireland assembly are interdependant, that is one can’t exist without the other.