BELFAST/DUBLIN — Britain and Ireland sought to calm Northern Ireland's political crisis on Friday by urging Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists to preserve a power-sharing government that ended decades of sectarian violence. The British province's autonomous administration is on the brink of collapse after a murder linked to former members of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA) prompted its first minister, Peter Robinson, to step aside. The 1998 Good Friday peace deal ended the so-called Troubles, three decades of tit-for-tat killings between Catholic Irish nationalists, who want the province to unite with Ireland, and Protestant unionists, that left 3,600 people dead. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny cautioned that there was only a “limited opportunity” to avert the collapse of the power-sharing administration. Britain and Ireland said talks between the parties to try to avert another breakdown would resume on Monday. However, the continued existence of paramilitary organisations more than a decade after they were supposed to have been disbanded has stoked emotion on both sides of the divide. — Reuters
