Britain's and Ireland's prime ministers on Thursday announced deadlines for recalling the Northern Ireland Assembly in mid May and setting up a power-sharing executive by November.

In a joint press conference in the city of Armagh, Northern Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern said the peace process in Northern Ireland had developed greatly since the devolved government at Stormont was suspended in October 2002. They planned to recall the Belfast assembly in May and give politicians six weeks to form a decision-making executive.

The two leaders have set an absolute deadline of November 24 for the re-establishment of a power-sharing administration between the Democratic Unionist Party, representing much of the province's Protestant majority who favor unity with Britain, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s political ally Sinn Fein -- the dominant nationalist party who supports a united Ireland.

Failure of the re-establishment would result in the deferral of the assembly and cancellation of salaries and allowances of assembly members. The British and Irish governments would together take over much of the running of the province, Blair and Ahern announced.

In the announcement, both Blair and Ahern acknowledged the difficulties facing them. These have been compounded by the murder of Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein's former head of administration at the Stormont government buildings in Belfast. Donaldson admitted last year that he had been a double agent for British intelligence for two decades.

Ahern said Donaldson's murder was a reminder of Ireland's "brutal past". "Time has come to move the peace process on," he said.

Blair said he would not let the murder derail the political process. The killing made it "even more important that we stand firm on the peace process," he said.

Speaking before the announcement of the peace process timetable, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain said that he did not expect the deal to be completed by mid May, but there had to be an agreement well before the end of the year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2006)