LONDON: The British and Irish prime ministers are heading to Belfast as hopes rise for an end to a political stalemate that has left
Northern Ireland without a government for more than a year.
UK Prime Minister
Theresa May and her Irish counterpart,
Leo Varadkar, are due to hold talks with the main political parties in Northern Ireland's collapsed power-sharing administration.
May's office says today's trip is aimed at encouraging the pro-British
Democratic Unionist Party and Irish nationalists of
Sinn Fein to resolve their differences.
The Catholic-Protestant power-sharing administration has been suspended since January 2017, after breaking down amid scandal over a botched green-energy project.
The parties have blamed each other for the impasse that threatens power-sharing, the key achievement of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord.
