UK, Ireland seen pushing ahead with N Irish deal

DUBLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) Britain and Ireland are expected to push ahead today with plans to restore self-rule in Northern Ireland although the province's two main parties have given only partial support to the deal by the November 10 deadline.

Ireland said today it still hoped Northern Ireland's regional government could be revived by March after the British province's main pro-London party vowed it would not budge without a pledge on policing by its Irish nationalist rivals. ''There are still differences on some of the key issues, but we believe there's enough work in progress to give us all hope,'' Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern told state broadcaster RTE.

London and Dublin last month gave Northern Ireland's parties until November 10 to back plans for reviving an assembly in which they must share power despite opposing visions of the future.

The two governments have yet to say whether qualified support from the two main parties is enough to push ahead with the next steps for restoration but a spokesman for Britain's Northern Ireland Office said there was ''a working assumption'' the parties wanted to move forward.

There will be a joint statement later in the day, he added.

Under October's St Andrews agreement, assembly members must elect a first and deputy-first minister from the two biggest opposing parties to lead the power-sharing executive by November 24 before a full restoration of self-rule by March 2007.

Failure to meet the deadlines will mean continued direct rule from London, but with a greater input from Dublin -- a prospect pro-British ''unionists'' find unpalatable.

The hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) -- Northern Ireland's biggest party and which wants the province to remain part of the United Kingdom -- appeared to give just enough to keep the process on track and meet the first November 10 deadline.

''The DUP ... wants to build on the areas of progress made at St Andrews,'' the party, led by firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, said in a statement late yesterday.

But the DUP said it expected Sinn Fein, which ultimately wants a united Ireland, to move first by backing a police force it has long mistrusted as an arm of the British state.

Sinn Fein, the province's second-largest party and political ally of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), this week backed the St Andrews plans but also said more work was needed.

REUTERS SP VV1722