IT IS premature and perhaps too optimistic to speak yet of the deal between London and Dublin on the political future of Northern Ireland as a breakthrough.

The new blueprint for the province does, however, provide the most significant opportunity for peace that Ulster has seen so far.

For, though inevitably a compromise between the conflicting republican demands for a united Ireland and loyalist determination to retain Ulster's constitutional link with the United Kingdom, the recommendations to the Stormont multi-party talks offer tangible hope of a political structure that may, at last, bring accord to both sides.

That is because beneath those clashing basic positions that are the roots of the years of conflict and bloodshed, the London-Dublin blueprint puts forward solutions that may at last satisfy both sides of the divide even though it means them each putting aside their fundamental principles of Irish unity and union with the UK.

With the proposed dropping of Dublin's constitutional territorial claim to Ulster and the changing of Britain's Government of Ireland Act of 1920 maintaining that the UK alone rules the province, there comes a three-structure system of government that redistributes power - hopefully to the satisfaction of all parties. First, there is a new Belfast-based Northern Ireland assembly which would end British direct rule and guarantee both unionists and loyalists a share of power.

Next, there is an intergovernmental body - the Council of the Isles - linking not just the British and Irish parliaments but also the nascent Scottish and Welsh assemblies.

Third, there will be a new North-South, cross-border ministerial council, with decision-making powers, linking the two parts of Ireland.

The first offers Ulster not just renewed autonomy, but more fairly-shared power than that wielded by unionist dominance in the past.

The second may meet unionist desires for the retention of the province's link with the UK.

And the third, may satisfy, if not fulfil, nationalist dreams of a united Ireland.

And though there is much in all this to offend the most intransigent hard-liners on either side, there is much too for men of reason to accept and much to allay the fears of ordinary people in both of Ulster's communities.

It is a formula for peace that now begs progress to that goal.

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