North Ireland justice deal ends political crisis

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams holds a copy of an agreement at a news conference in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland, February 5, 2010.

HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Northern Ireland is to take full control of its own police and justice system under a deal marking one of the boldest steps since a 1998 peace pact and ending a row that threatened to bring down Belfast's government.

An agreement that will give Belfast its first justice minister by April 12 was reached late on Thursday after nearly two weeks of talks between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the nationalist Sinn Fein.

"This is the day we have secured the future, lasting peace and power sharing as it should be in Northern Ireland," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a news conference at Hillsborough Castle, outside Belfast where he and his Irish counterpart Brian Cowen endorsed the accord.

Failure to get a deal would almost certainly have triggered a snap election in the British province where former foes, the predominantly Roman Catholic Sinn Fein and the mainly Protestant DUP, share power.

"This agreement is a sure sign that we are not going back to the bad old days," Northern Ireland's First Minister, the DUP's Peter Robinson said.

"No future generation would forgive us for squandering the peace that has been so long fought for."

'MOST IMPORTANT DEAL OF ALL'

Three decades of sectarian violence that cost 3,600 lives were mostly ended by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, also signed at Hillsborough Castle, the residence of the British minister in charge of Northern Irish affairs.

Analysts had warned a political vacuum following any break down of talks could have led violence to flare up again.

Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, said the devolution deal "could turn out to be the most important of all."

"This might just be the day when the political process in Northern Ireland came of age," he said.

Negotiations between his side, which believes in a united Ireland, and the DUP, which wants Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain, had been very difficult, he said, but he was determined the two parties would carry on working together "in good faith and with a good heart."

The protracted negotiations stumbled over the issue of a date for transferring powers and a parades commission that oversees marches, a mostly Protestant tradition that has been a flashpoint for sectarian tensions.

The text of the "Agreement at Hillsborough Castle" says the two sides are committed to establishing "a new and improved framework" for regulating parades.

To find a candidate for justice minister, the first minister and deputy first minister will convene a meeting on Monday. They are expected to choose a member of the Alliance Party, which is not aligned to unionists or nationalists.

Analysts said the new deal was a real chance for greater stability in Northern Ireland.

"The spirit in which the deal has been presented shows that we are moving at last into a more settled place for cooperation, which is very important when dealing particularly with the running sore of parading," said Richard English, professor of politics at Queen's University in Belfast.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; writing by Barbara Lewis; editing by Robin Pomeroy)