NIrish deal would go beyond Good Friday pact

LONDON, Oct 15 (Reuters) Proposals drawn up by the British and Irish governments to restore self rule to Northern Ireland, if accepted in the province, would produce a deal potentially more significant than a 1998 peace pact, London said today.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern on Friday published a plan to break a long-standing deadlock between the province's two main parties.

The proposals require the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to agree to share power with its rival pro-Irish Sinn Fein while Sinn Fein must agree to endorse local police.

Both parties must say they agree to the plan by November 10 or London and Dublin will close a suspended power-sharing assembly in Belfast, set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Northern Ireland minister Peter Hain said the new deal, if accepted, could be more inclusive than Good Friday.

''I do think this is potentially more significant for the reason that when the Good Friday Agreement was negotiated in 1998 the Democratic Unionists were outside the tent and Sinn Fein were only halfway in,'' Hain told BBC Television.

''We now have the potential for both parties to be fully signed up to power-sharing and republicans to join with other parties in signing up to policing and respect for the rule of law,'' he added.

The Good Friday pact largely ended three decades of violence between majority Protestants committed to ties with Britain and a Catholic minority in favour of a united Ireland.

It set up a local assembly where pro-British Protestants and pro-Irish Roman Catholics jointly governed the province. But the assembly was suspended in 2002 amid allegations of spying by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Fein's armed ally, and responsible for half the 3,600 deaths during the conflict.

The DUP and Sinn Fein both said on Friday an agreement was possible but they must go away and consult their grassroots supporters.

Hain said the government stood by its commitment to close the assembly by November 24 if the parties fail to sign up to the deal: ''It is important people remember the deadline of November 24 remains in place. If this unravels, Stormont is dissolved.'' ''I am optimistic that will not happen, and I also have no doubt that one of the reasons that we had the agreement on Friday was the existence of that deadline,'' he added.

REUTERS SY VV1920