LONDON (Reuters) – Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary organisations told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson they are temporarily withdrawing support for the 1998 peace agreement due to concerns over the Brexit deal, the Belfast Telegraph reported.
The outlawed groups said in a letter from an umbrella body representing the paramilitaries that the unionist opposition to the Northern Irish Protocol – part of the Brexit divorce deal – should remain “peaceful and democratic”.
Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal, known as the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, largely ended three decades of violence between nationalist paramilitaries fighting for a united Ireland and mainly Protestant groups who want to keep Northern Ireland British.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Estelle Shirbon)
