The leaders of Northern Ireland's major Protestant and Catholic parties, sitting side by side for the first time in history, have announced a deal to forge a power-sharing coalition. Their agreement, after barely an hour of discussions Monday, calls for the loyalist Democratic Unionists and the republican Sinn Fein to work directly together on a detailed program for government. On May 8, the Northern Ireland Assembly is to elect a 12-member administration with Unionist Ian Paisley at its head and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness in the No. 2 post.

The conflict over Northern Ireland, a corner of the United Kingdom with 1.7 million residents, has claimed more than 3,600 lives since the 1960s. At that time, Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams was an up-and-coming IRA member from Catholic West Belfast, Paisley the province's most infamous opponent of a Catholic civil rights movement.

The British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, appeared to have forced Monday's breakthrough by declaring March 26 their "unbreakable" deadline: Either the Unionists would agree to cooperate by that date, or Britain would abolish the assembly – an outcome neither side wanted.

Main Source: Associated Press