HILLSBOROUGH(AFP)– Northern Ireland's major British Protestant party unexpectedly held back Monday from accepting a deal with its Irish Catholic partners to save their 2 1/2-year-old administration.

Their dispute involves a long-delayed plan to transfer government responsibility for Northern Ireland's police and justice system from Britain to local hands.
The Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party have repeatedly blocked the move. They have made it conditional on winning concessions in other areas, particularly the right of Protestant groups to march near hostile Catholic districts.
Fed up with two years of delays, Sinn Fein threatened this month to withdraw from the coalition. This would destroy power-sharing, the central goal of a 1998 peace accord designed to end decades of conflict that left 3,700 dead.
Sinn Fein and the British, Irish and U.S. governments all had hoped to see local control of law enforcement, the court system and criminal justice standards by 2008. But in the past week of negotiations, the Democratic Unionists have tied the move to abolishing a British-appointed Parades Commission that has severely restricted Protestant parades over the past decade. Sinn Fein rejects this demand.