BEYOND Tony Blair's deadline for a deal to be reached, the still-deadlocked Northern Ireland peace process now heads for a dangerous limbo. It is hoped to revive it after the summer but ahead lies the powder-keg of the Ulster marching season which could erupt into violence and plunge the province back into the abyss of bloodshed.

Yet, the burning question as this dread prospect now looms is: Why should it - when Ulster seems but a nod from turning in the other direction towards a lasting peace?

Tony Blair, the Irish president Bertie Ahern and US president Bill Clinton are all absolutely right when they declare that it will be hard for the civilised world to understand why, at this juncture, the political parties in Ulster failed to bridge the gap between them.

For surrounded by the yearning political will of the vast majority of Ulster's people for a peace settlement - a sentiment that has itself done much to close the once-yawning, hate-filled gulf between the province's two communities - the people's representatives themselves appear unable to take the final step, even though the peril of failure is all too plain.

But, surely, there is now a formula for progress.

All the parties have now agreed the need for total disarmament by the republican and loyalist paramilitary groups.

Tony Blair has given an absolute guarantee of Sinn Fein's inclusion in the new Northern Ireland executive and its expulsion if the IRA does not keep its word or the schedule. Yet, this does not seem enough for the hard-liners who determine that Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble's stance of "no guns, no government" means that decommissioning must start before the executive is formed, not afterwards.

The two sides, then, having come this close are kept apart by a difference amounting to a few weeks.

It is detail that will bewilder most neutral observers - and shame Ulster's politicians everlastingly if it is allowed to be the downfall of the peace.

But it is a stark symbol of the extreme mistrust that plagues their mentality.

Staring now at a return to the hell of bloodshed, these people must at last realise that they have to set that aside and go forward.

For the world will weep with angered frustration if they do not and Ulster will once again be soaked in bitter tears of grief.

Do they want the responsibility for that?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.