Police issue stalls N. Ireland deal

The first key deadline for implementing a new power-sharing plan in Northern Ireland passed Friday with the parties still at loggerheads, but Britain and Ireland said they were satisfied that the pact “represents the basis for a political settlement” of the long-running conflict.

Both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, were to have signaled their acceptance this week of the proposal brokered last month at St. Andrews, Scotland, by the British and Irish prime ministers, under which the two former adversaries would jointly head a new Belfast government.

Instead, both sides only signaled conditional acceptance, apparently stuck on the same issue that has forestalled an agreement from the beginning: the unionist party’s insistence that Sinn Fein endorse the local police force -- with which its military wing, the Irish Republican Army, was virtually at war for years -- before joining the government.

Sinn Fein leaders believe the police force, as it was formerly constituted, was involved in the killings of Roman Catholic residents, either directly or through Protestant paramilitary forces.

The party, which for years has sought union with Ireland, has said it is prepared to accept the police force once it is assured that concrete reforms are in place, a timeframe is established for handing over control of the police to local authorities, and after the party’s membership has agreed to take such a step.

The logjam has raised serious questions about whether the two parties will be able to appoint joint heads of government by a Nov. 24 deadline. The British government has said that failure to meet that deadline would result in the shutdown of the National Assembly, now meeting on an ad hoc basis, and in reimposition of British direct rule.

Sources at the DUP, which favors union with Britain, hinted of a strong possibility there would be “slippage” on the deadline.

“Before anything of the nature the government are talking about on Nov. 24 can be done ... all those commitments need to be made. We are completely unequivocal on that,” said a party source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, who would be the party’s top minister in any new government, said it was crucial that the deadline be met. “I firmly believe that all of the challenges we face can be overcome. On Nov. 24, the Assembly must meet as set out at St. Andrews for the nominations of the first and deputy first minister as joint and co-equal partners in a new power-sharing government,” he said in Belfast.

Sinn Fein conditionally accepted the St. Andrews agreement Monday, saying it has the potential to implement the historic “Good Friday” accord reached in 1998 and restore the region’s political institutions.

Speaking Thursday night in New York after the U.S. government lifted a ban on Sinn Fein leaders addressing fundraising events, party leader Gerry Adams affirmed his commitment to moving forward. “The time to end this game is now,” he said. But he said he would continue to insist on police reforms and local control.

DUP leader Ian Paisley has refused to meet Adams and says he will not form a government with a party that does not uphold basic principles of law and order.

“The foundation stone of any democratic party is that they support the police, the courts, and the rule of law,” he said. “Sinn Fein must stand foursquare behind the police service and the justice system.”

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Special correspondent William Graham in Belfast contributed to this report.