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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 14, 2002

Britain to Re-Impose Direct Rule on N.Ireland

Britain was set to suspend Northern Ireland's power-sharing government on Monday after a spying row threw the fledgling peace process into its worst political crisis since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.


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Britain was set to suspend Northern Ireland's power-sharing government on Monday after a spying row threw the fledgling peace process into its worst political crisis since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.

The UK government's Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid was due to announce at 10 a.m. (5 a.m. EDT), from his residence outside Belfast, the temporary end to devolution and a return of direct rule from London, official sources said.

Although that would be the fourth such suspension in three years of the Northern Ireland Assembly and other power-sharing institutions, there was a widespread feeling it would take longer this time to get the bickering factions back together.

With the fragile political truce between Catholic republican and Protestant unionist parties already strained to the limit, spying allegations earlier this month against the Irish Republican Army guerrilla movement proved the final straw.

As one unionist party walked out of the assembly and another threatened to go by Tuesday unless the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein was expelled, Britain decided to pull the plug before the Catholic/Protestant government self-destructed.

Reid's Northern Ireland Office will take over day-to-day running of the small province of 1.6 million people from Monday, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair seeks to rebuild consensus among the political parties.

The present crisis erupted earlier this month over allegations an IRA spy ring had penetrated the headquarters of British ministers in the province. Four people have been charged with holding documents "likely to be of use to terrorists."

Source: Agencies










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