Northern Ireland government loses Protestant party

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party resigned from the province's unity government Thursday, leaving Britain to decide whether to suspend the troubled experiment in Catholic-Protestant cooperation.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said his party would not return to the four-party coalition government until the Irish Republican Army starts to disarm.

He said Britain had a week to respond.

Trimble, who resigned as the government's leader in July, said his party's three remaining Cabinet ministers had handed in resignation letters to take effect at midnight.

Under the law governing the power-sharing government, it cannot survive without the participation of either the Ulster Unionists or the largest Catholic-supported party, the Social Democratic and Labor Party.

Formed in December 1999, the power-sharing government has already been suspended three times by Britain -- each time over disputes about the IRA disarming.

Trimble said Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, John Reid, must decide whether the administration should have its powers stripped once again, effectively putting the four-party coalition into cold storage, or dissolving it completely to prepare for new elections.

Trimble said his party had spent 18 months operating a coalition that included militant Catholics from Sinn Fein -- but the party's IRA allies had failed to meet their end of the bargain by disarming.