Power-sharing in Northern Ireland could still happen today, despite the largest Protestant party's request for a six-week delay to a decision, Britain's Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain said yesterday.
"I will be signing a restoration order today [Sunday] because there is a chance devolution will happen tomorrow," Hain said as time was running out ahead of today's 11pm deadline for agreement to be reached.
"If I don't sign a restoration order, it [the Northern Ireland Assembly] all shuts down immediately then a dissolution order is signed," he said. "I don't want to do that because the parties still have an opportunity to form an executive and an assembly as of now."
The Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of longtime politician and church leader Ian Paisley is waiting to see if London will budge and accept its demand for a six-week delay to today's deadline to strike a deal with its Catholic rivals, Sinn Fein.
After a meeting of its executive on Saturday, DUP sources said they were prepared to make the landmark jump and form an executive with Sinn Fein if London gives them breathing space.
But Hain maintained his position yesterday, warning parties that he was still prepared to dissolve the assembly at Stormont.
Northern Ireland would then be run indefinitely from London with input from the Republic of Ireland.
Hain confirmed that during talks last week, Paisley twice attempted to persuade him and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to introduce emergency legislation today to implement the six-week delay.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said Britain had to stick to the plan and not give Paisley more time.
The 108-member assembly, which was re-elected only two weeks ago, is supposed to form a 12-member, four-party administration that would take control of Northern Ireland government departments from Britain.
Paisley declined to discuss specifics of the party's motion -- but emphasized he would not be coerced by Britain's deadline.
In Dublin, Adams canceled a planned news conference and traveled north to meet Hain and other British officials.
The Democratic Unionists say they will work with Sinn Fein only if the party's leaders demonstrate convincing support for law and order.
Sinn Fein, which supported the Irish Republican Army's 1970-1997 campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force, in January voted to open normal relations with Northern Ireland's mostly Protestant police.
But political messages and events in Sinn Fein power bases since have been mixed.
Adams has repeatedly called on supporters to help police solve specific crimes, but he has also defended a deputy's view that police should not be told about the activities of IRA dissidents plotting to wreck the 1997 ceasefire.
And police units have continued to face violence in hardline Catholic parts of Northern Ireland, including overnight.
Police said men and youths threw gasoline bombs early Saturday at a police station in Crossmaglen, a border town renowned as an IRA bastion, causing scorch damage to perimeter walls but no injuries.
On Friday night, a Catholic crowd pelted detectives with stones and bottles as they tried to investigate the fatal beating of a pub-goer in Lurgan.
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