Blair Visits N. Ireland in Push for Peace

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — British Prime Minister Tony Blair met Tuesday with Northern Ireland political leaders and the Irish premier in a new effort to salvage the province’s faltering peace accord.

He warned that there will be no easy way out of the impasse but said he hoped to work out a plan that would lead to restoration of powers to the Protestant and Roman Catholic Cabinet suspended in February because of a deadlock over Irish Republican Army weapons.

“There was an attitude by the parties in favor of the [1998 Good Friday peace] agreement, that this is the only serious way forward,” Blair said after a series of meetings in Belfast, the provincial capital.

The power-sharing Cabinet--which included the largest Protestant party, the Ulster Unionists, and members of the IRA’s political ally, Sinn Fein--was only 10 weeks old when its powers were lifted.