NI elections date confirmed
Downing Street has announced that elections for the dissolved Northern Ireland Assembly will now take place on November 26th.
The announcement came as the IRA was expected to make a landmark statement on disarmament.
Discussions on weapons decommissioning between the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein are believed to have proved constructive and the IRA is now due to release a statement.
Sinn Fein party president Gerry Adams is expected to deliver a speech in a Belfast hotel at around 10:30 BST.
The IRA has already carried out two acts of decommissioning but unionists have been unhappy with the lack of clarity and refusal to pledge an end to all paramilitary activity.
The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended a year ago amid accusations of intelligence gathering by the IRA.
Voters in Northern Ireland had been due to go to the polls in May, but the British government postponed the elections.
General John de Chastelain, head of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, is believed to have played a key role in recent negotiations.
Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern are reportedly on standby to fly to Northern Ireland if required.
Leaders from the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein and representatives from the Irish and UK governments have worked intensely over the last six weeks to resurrect the Good Friday Agreement.
