October 15, 2002	Tuesday	Sha'aban 8, 1423

BELFAST, Oct 14: Britain announced on Monday it was suspending Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government for the fourth time after an IRA spying row plunged Belfast’s troubled peace process into fresh chaos.

The suspension is seen by observers as the worst crisis since the historic 1998 Good Friday accord established joint Roman Catholic and Protestant rule in the province.

“We’ve reached an impasse. Hopefully it will be short-lived,” John Reid, the British minister for Northern Ireland, said in announcing that direct rule from London would be imposed for an unspecified period.

“I hope the decision I have taken today marks a breathing space — a chance to gather strength — before the process moves forward once again,” Reid told reporters at Hillsborough Castle, near Belfast.

Britain’s media have reported that the suspension of the province’s Assembly, or parliament, and its government — which is responsible for the day-to-day running of Northern Ireland — could last several months.

“Over the past weeks and months, the political process in Northern Ireland has encountered increasing difficulties,” Reid said.

“My sincere hope was that we would be able to overcome those challenges, but it has proved impossible to do that, at least in the short term.”

The British and Irish governments are now to press for an immediate resumption of talks between the province’s political parties.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern, key players in the peace process, called for an “unambiguous and definitive” commitment from all sides in Northern Ireland to peaceful means of solving their problems.

The two leaders said in a joint statement that the time had come “for people to choose one track or the other” — peace or violence.

Meanwhile, Reid said that the May 1 election date scheduled for the Northern Ireland Assembly stands as before.

The decision to put the local government into cold storage follows allegations that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its political wing Sinn Fein were gathering intelligence inside British government offices in Belfast.

Four Sinn Fein members have been charged with possessing information useful to terrorists, after shock raids and arrests of party members 10 days ago.

The spying scandal led hardline Protestants to question Catholic republicans’ commitment to the peace process.

David Trimble, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, had warned that he would withdraw his party’s Protestant ministers from the Northern Ireland administration, effectively collapsing the government, if Britain did not take steps to expel Sinn Fein from it by Tuesday.

As Reid prepared to announce the suspension, Trimble said this would not solve the province’s underlying problems but was simply buying time.

TRIMBLE ADDED: “We are again confronted with the instability that has been in the process right from the beginning — namely the failure of paramilitaries to deliver their side of the bargain” and disarm.

But Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, strongly opposed to the suspension of power-sharing, warned that bringing down the system would not help to disband the IRA.

Northern Ireland’s biggest Catholic paramilitary group has officially been on ceasefire since 1997, but it has been accused by Protestants of refusing to halt activities such as gathering intelligence and training leftist rebels in Colombia.

Nevertheless, Adams insisted that republicans remained committed to the Good Friday accord.

The 1998 deal apportioned power in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants, and aimed to bring an end to three decades of bloody violence between the two communities.—AFP