British PM says progress made toward Northern Ireland agreement

LONDON, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday that discussions in Northern Ireland have established a "pathway" for a future agreement.

Brown traveled to Northern Ireland on Monday with Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen to discuss the issue of devolution with Northern Ireland political leaders.

Speaking to journalists after two days of negotiations, Brown said "enormous progress" had been made on individual issues raised by political leaders.

He said there's a realistic prospect of a reasonable agreement, "We've looked at the issue of dates for devolution of police and justice - It's feasible that the Assembly could debate it in March with implementation in May," he said.

Brown said he had asked the main parties to come up with a workable proposal for agreeing a way forward before Friday.

If the parties can not reach agreement by then, Brown said the British and Irish governments will publish their own proposals.

"We believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable deal on devolution of policing and justice, we believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable settlement on all the outstanding issues," Brown said.

He added: "If we judge that insubstantial progress has been made we will publish our own proposals."

Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has insisted Sinn Fein has fulfilled its obligations in government and said First Minister Peter Robinson's the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) must do the same in order for the two parties to continue working together.

McGuinness claimed that while his party had backed new policing structures after the 2006 St Andrews agreement which paved the way for power-sharing, the DUP had yet to fulfill its commitments.

Despite some agreement among both partners that policing has to be devolved at some stage, they have sparred over when that will take place.

Sinn Fein warned recently that if agreement cannot be reached on devolution, the Assembly and the Executive cannot continue.