Northern Ireland's main political leaders said Monday there was not enough time left to resolve a dispute over IRA disarmament before new elections, imperiling the operations of the British-ruled province's power-sharing assembly.

Without a deal between the Irish Republican Army's political ally, Sinn Fein, and David Trimble's Ulster Unionists, it is unlikely Northern Ireland's Protestant/Catholic power-sharing assembly, set up under a 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, will be able to function after the Nov. 26 election.

"There isn't unfortunately time to be able to sort all these matters out, and who knows, had there been another few days or a week available that might have been possible," Trimble told reporters before a meeting of his party officials.

"But with the election having been called, and with the inexorable movement of the electoral timetable ... obviously we may be in a position where we can't do anything further."

Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams later agreed the election would go ahead without a deal on a return to power sharing in Belfast.

"I'm bitterly disappointed, and I think lots of other people will be bitterly disappointed," he told reporters.

"It's quite incredible that after all the work that went into trying to sort this out, that we now end up with a situation where I think public confidence has been damaged."

The outlawed paramilitary group, which fought a three-decade guerrilla war against British rule before calling a cease-fire in 1997, has so far resisted pressure to allow international monitors to provide more details of the arms put out of action.

Last Tuesday's initiative was part of an orchestrated sequence of events designed to lead to the revival of the power-sharing assembly -- suspended a year ago after allegations of IRA spying -- after the November election.

When Gen. John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian soldier charged with overseeing paramilitary disarmament, said he could only give vague details of the substantial cache of weapons "put beyond use," Trimble pulled out of the deal.

Calling for greater transparency in the disarmament process, the Ulster Unionist leader refused to give a pledge to return to government with Sinn Fein after the election.

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