PSNI 'will get all-party support'

Mitchell Reiss spoke at a police graduation ceremony

All of Northern Ireland's political parties will soon move to back the PSNI, a senior US government official has claimed.

US Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss made the comments in a speech to graduates at the police training college in east Belfast.

Mr Reiss held separate talks with Sinn Fein, the DUP and the UUP on Friday.

"I believe it is only a question of 'when, not if'. That's what I'm working to bring about," he said.

Mr Reiss also told the new officers that when all of the parties had given their consent to policing reforms, the PSNI would have to "build trust and confidence across the community".

All parties except Sinn Fein have signed up to police reforms in Northern Ireland which transformed the Royal Ulster Constabulary into the PSNI.

Police reforms

The reforms were aimed at redressing the religious imbalance by persuading more Catholics to join the PSNI after the demise of the overwhelmingly Protestant RUC .

They also led to the creation of a Police Ombudsman, a Policing Board and District Policing Partnership boards which are designed to hold PSNI officers and their leadership to account for their actions.

Sinn Fein believe police reforms do not go far enough

However, Sinn Fein will not endorse the reforms because they claim they do not go far enough.

The party has been pressing for the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to a devolved government at Stormont.

The government is expected to introduce legislation later next month to address Sinn Fein's demand.

Following Friday's talks, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams called on the US administration to be balanced and even-handed in its approach to the political process.

If there was to be "a big push" by the British and Irish governments to restore the political institutions, the US administration had to be fully and absolutely behind it, he said.

IMC report

Meetings between the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland's political parties aimed at restoring power-sharing are due to resume on 6 February.

Earlier this month, police said the IRA was still engaged in criminal activity.

However, the government is hoping the Independent Monitoring Commission's report on paramilitary activity, due next week, will back its assertion that the organisation is no longer involved in crime.

The DUP has also said it remains concerned about indications that republicans are still involved in criminality.

On Tuesday, party leader Ian Paisley presented Mr Blair with a 16-page document outlining their proposals for a return to devolution in Northern Ireland.

Although details of the document were not released, the paper is understood to propose a two-stage process under which the Stormont assembly might be revived, without a power-sharing executive.

Devolved government at Stormont was suspended in 2002 following allegations of a republican spy ring at the Northern Ireland Office.

Last December, a prosecution against three people accused of involvement was scrapped.

Shortly afterwards, one of the three, senior Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson who had worked at Stormont, admitted that he had been a British agent for 20 years.