UK PM meets ministers in NIreland parliament

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Northern Ireland on Monday to meet Stormont's newly-appointed leaders and mark the return of devolution after there years of deadlock.

Johnson, along with Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith, was greeted by DUP First Minister Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill outside Stormont Castle in Belfast.

Speaking after talks at Stormont, Johnson said politicians from all sides had "stepped up to the plate and shown leadership" in breaking the political impasse.

Northern Ireland - part of the UK along with England, Wales and Scotland - has been without a functioning administration since the power-sharing government set up after a 1998 peace accord fell apart in January 2017 over a botched green-energy project.

The rift soon widened to broader cultural and political issues separating Northern Ireland's British unionists and its Irish nationalists, the two communities whose conflicting identities and aspirations fueled years of violence in which more than 3,000 people died.

Since 2017, Northern Ireland has been run by civil servants with limited powers to make big decisions.

Major projects have been put on hold -- all in the shadow of the UK’s impending departure from the European Union on Jan. 31, which has serious implications for the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, an EU member.

After three years of acrimony that left Northern Ireland with a stack of unresolved issues and a growing public-sector crisis, the parties agreed on Friday to a deal brokered by the UK and Irish governments to revive the Belfast government.

The deal promises UK government funds for big infrastructure projects and Northern Ireland's cash-strapped public services. Northern Ireland's health service has been has been particularly hard hit by the political vacuum, and nurses have staged a series of strikes to protest staffing shortages and eroding salaries.

"I see the hand of the future beckoning us all forward. And I hope that with goodwill and compromise and hard work on all sides it will be a very bright future indeed," Johnson said.