Hillary Clinton would seek immediate talks with the Irish and UK governments on the impact of Brexit on Ireland if elected US president, one of her most senior aides has said.
Speaking a day after Mrs Clinton became the first woman to be nominated to lead a major political party into the US presidential election, Jake Sullivan, her senior policy adviser, said the Democratic candidate's campaign team was watching the repercussions from the decision of UK voters to leave the European Union last month.
"There are so many open questions that have to get worked out within the UK about how they are going to go forward on this issue," Mr Sullivan told The Irish Times on the fringes of the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia.
"If Hillary were elected, I think she would want to get into discussions immediately with both 10 Downing Street and with the Taoiseach about what the United States can do to support our partners both in the UK and in Ireland. Beyond that it is just hard to get into details because so much remains up in the air."
Border poll
Mr Sullivan, who was Mrs Clinton’s deputy chief of state and later the director of policy planning when she was President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, said she did not have a specific view on the issue of a post-Brexit border poll on Irish reunification.
“We are still watching things unfold but as the secretary has the opportunity to look at the dynamics that are playing out and has the chance to speak to people in Ireland and the UK, she will come to her own conclusions, but I think it is a bit premature,” he said.
The Clintons, who played an instrumental role in the Northern Ireland peace process during Bill Clinton's presidency in the mid-1990s, have kept a close eye on Brexit's effect on Ireland.
Mr Clinton told Irish-American supporters at a campaign event in New York in April during the Democratic primary election that his wife had privately expressed concerns about the impact of Brexit, saying that it would be “awful for Ireland” and “pretty tough for Northern Ireland”.
‘Whacked’
In March, Mr Clinton told another Irish-American audience that Northern Ireland would “really get whacked if Britain withdrew from the European Union”.
Mrs Clinton will formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination during a speech at the convention in Philadelphia tonight, officially kick-starting the national election campaign against Republican nominee Donald Trump leading up to the ballot on November 8th.
