UK wants to avoid 'hard border' in Ireland

By Ilker Girit

ISTANBUL

The British government has said it does not want “hard border” to mark the U.K.'s only land frontier -- between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland -- after Brexit.

In a new government paper released on Wednesday, London said it wanted to avoid "a hard border for the movement of goods," and to maintain existing agreements which cover British and Irish citizens' rights to travel and residence in each other’s countries.

Wednesday’s paper -- the latest in a series of Brexit policy positions – insisted its "high-level objectives" included upholding the 1998 Belfast Agreement peace deal in Northern Ireland and preserving “North-South and East-West cooperation".

The 499-kilometer (310 mile) border was once a heavily militarized frontier, especially during 40 years of Northern Ireland’s sectarian violence, also known as the ‘Troubles’.

The 1998 peace deal began a process which saw the border eventually become almost unnoticeable by those crossing between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

However, the effect of having the island of Ireland further split into EU and non-EU jurisdictions has worried local political parties -- where a majority of voters chose to remain in the EU -- and an Irish government which sees Brexit as a destabilizing phenomenon.

Britain said it also sought to retain the Common Travel Area, a bilateral deal with Dublin which covers the free movement of British and Irish citizens.

"The U.K. will seek to ensure that individuals traveling to the U.K. from the EU, and vice versa, can continue to travel with goods for personal use as freely and as smoothly as they do now," the government also said.

Another policy paper was released on Tuesday hinted at a new post-Brexit customs plan with the EU, aiming to make future trade "as frictionless as possible".

Tuesday’s paper claimed "there are two broad approaches the U.K. could adopt, "streamlining current arrangements or establishing a new customs partnership”.

The U.K. is expected to leave the EU in 2019 as a result of a 2016 referendum which began the process of ending the country’s 44-year membership of the bloc.