Table Not Yet Set For Talks On Ireland

All-party talks on the future of Ireland open Monday, but it remains in doubt if the key party will be at the table.

Sinn Fein is expected to be excluded from the talks at Stormont castle outside of Belfast, because it has resisted intense pressure from the U.S. and Irish governments to reinstate a cease-fire from terrorism.

Hopes for a cease-fire, almost extinguished after hard-line Irish Republican Army statements in the past few days, were rekindled Saturday with word that Sinn Fein’s executive committee in Dublin was “studying” arrangements negotiated by British and Irish officials.