Fresh election or direct rule looms as N.Ireland talks fall apart

BELFAST, (Reuters) - Northern Ireland could be set for a fresh election or a return to direct British rule of the province after the two main parties in negotiations to form a new government said yesterday that talks had run their course without success.

The British province’s nationalist and unionist parties have until Monday to form a new power-sharing government after snap elections this month or risk decision-making being taken back to London for the first time since 2007.

Sinn Fein, the province’s largest nationalist party, said that no substantive progress had been made on any of the key issues responsible for the impasse and that it would not support nominations to form a new regional executive.

“This talks process has run its course,” the party’s Northern Ireland leader Michelle O’Neill told reporters.

Both O’Neill and the leader of the main pro-British party, the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) Arlene Foster, blamed each other for the collapse, with Foster saying there was little to suggest that Sinn Fein wanted to secure agreement.

“While regrettable, the reality is that sufficient progress was not achieved in the time available to form a new executive,” Foster said in a statement.

Sinn Fein had collapsed the previous government and surged to within one seat of the DUP at the March 2 election to deny pro-British unionist politicians a majority in the regional assembly for the first time since Ireland was partitioned in 1921.

Britain’s Northern Ireland minister James Brokenshire responded by urging the parties “even at this stage” to agree to work to form an executive, a position backed by Irish foreign minister Charlie Flanagan.

“This is a critical time for Northern Ireland. We are on the cusp on the triggering of Article 50 by the British Government,” Flanagan said referring to Britain’s plans to begin the process of the leaving the European Union this week.