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Deadline set for N.Ireland partiesBlair-Ahern summit on N. Ireland comes during spy murder probe
SPECIAL REPORT
QUICKVOTEYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSDUBLIN, Republic of Ireland (CNN) -- The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland have issued a final deadline for Northern Ireland's deeply divided politicians to revive a stalled power-sharing assembly seen as key to lasting peace in the province. Britain's Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern made the announcement in the Northern Ireland city of Armagh as they unveiled their blueprint for ending a deadlock over the joint Protestant-Catholic administration. The leaders said the Belfast assembly, formed in 1998 as part of an agreement to end 30 years of sectarian violence but suspended in 2002, would be recalled on May 15. They will then get six weeks to form a decision-making executive that will have a November 24 final deadline to form a power-sharing. "Today we have the responsibility of deciding over the next nine months whether we can make the future work," Blair said in announcing the deadline. Under the plan, if both sides fail to come together, the assembly would be abandoned and the province revert to joint Irish and British control. "At that point we close the chapter or we close the book," Blair said. "People in Northern Ireland and the whole of the island of Ireland want this to work." Thursday's announcement comes two days after the murder of Denis Donaldson, who was recently exposed as a double agent, an incident expected to deepen skepticism over the assembly plan. Donaldson, 56, who last year admitted spying on fellow Irish nationalists, was found fatally shot and with his right arm nearly severed in his isolated home in rural Ireland on Tuesday. ( Watch how murder could complicate peace process -- 2:23) Both the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which has fought a bloody campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland, and the nationalist Sinn Fein party denied any responsibility for the killing. For the power-sharing assembly to work, Democratic Unionist Party -- which represents most of the province's British protestant majority -- must abandon its refusal to cooperate with Sinn Fein, once viewed as the IRA's political wing. Reacting to the deadline, the DUP said it was not happy with the proposal. "Entrance to government cannot be dependent on a date but only when terror and crime carried out by those allied to a political party is gone forever," leader Ian Paisley said in a statement, according to Reuters. Sinn Fein chief negotiator Martin McGuinness told state broadcaster RTE that his party was considering its position, Reuters added. The Irish prime minister earlier said Donaldson's death had heightened Protestant opposition to sharing power with Sinn Fein. He said the killing "certainly makes it more difficult." Britain suspended the assembly in October 2002 as an IRA spying scandal stoked Protestant anger towards Sinn Fein. Subsequent efforts to heal the rift between the two sides have proved fruitless. Donaldson, a former Sinn Fein legislative chief in a power-sharing government that collapsed in 2002, admitted last December that he had been on the payroll of the British secret service. Despite assurances that his admission would not meet with reprisals, he then went into hiding because the IRA's traditional punishment for informers during its 27-year campaign has been death. His location was revealed by Irish media two weeks ago. Donaldson's identity as a double agent was exposed last year after he was charged with stealing documents that identified potential targets of the IRA. Protestants accused the IRA of plotting a potential resumption of its violent campaign. 
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