UK, Irish PMs to meet over deadlocked N. Irish peace process

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 08, 2004

UK, Irish PMs to meet over deadlocked N. Irish peace process

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern are to hold talks Thursday in a bid to revive the long deadlocked Northern Ireland peace process.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern are to hold talks Thursday in a bid to revive the long deadlocked Northern Ireland peace process.

"This is an important meeting," Ahern told Ireland's RTE state radio, without revealing where the talks would take place.

He said the two governments would discuss whether there was anychance to restore the suspended power-sharing Northern Ireland assembly in the coming months, and if not, what would be the ways forward.

Those are "the two issues we have to look at on Thursday", Ahern said.

The Northern Ireland assembly was suspended amid allegations ofIRA spying in October 2002 and the parties in the province went into the election against the background of a deadlocked politicalprocess last November.

As a result of the robust rise of radical parties on both the Protestant and Catholic sides during the poll, analysts say hopes for a quick breakthrough in Northern Ireland's political stalematenow seem dim.

Northern Ireland has been plagued by three decades of politicaland sectarian violence between Protestants committed to keeping the union with Britain and Catholics who want to end it and unite with the Irish Republic.

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