The main Irish nationalist and pro-British unionist parties in Northern Ireland who a day earlier agreed to a power-sharing government, sat on Saturday, after a three-year hiatus.
On Friday Sinn Fein, the largest nationalist party, followed its rival, the Democratic Unionist Party, in backing a draft deal brokered by the Irish and British governments to end the devolved assembly’s suspension.
The importance of the devolved administration has increased because a provision in Britain’s European Union withdrawal deal will give the assembly the right every four years to consider whether to maintain alignment with EU market rules.