BELFAST: Northern Ireland faced its biggest political crisis in more than a decade on Thursday with the British government set to be asked to suspend the province’s power-sharing administration, after a murder police said was linked to the disbanded IRA.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was concerned about the situation in the province which is one of the most serious political disputes since a 1998 peace deal between Catholic Irish nationalists who want the province to unite with Ireland and their Protestant rivals.

After a senior member of Sinn Fein was arrested on Wednesday in relation to an IRA-linked murder, the Democratic Unionist Party said its ministers would resign immediately if its call for an adjournment was not backed or London did not agree to suspend Parliament. However, the DUP, the province’s largest pro-British party, failed to win support from rival parties for an adjournment.