BELFAST - The minister handed the most thankless task in British politics visited Belfast on Monday with the goal of bringing a lasting peace to Northern Ireland seemingly further away than ever.

New Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain must confront the reality of a province even more divided after hardliners made big gains in last week's British elections.

Hain, a key ally of Prime Minister Tony Blair and a former anti-apartheid activist, was in determined mood as he strolled down one of Belfast's main shopping streets.

"The only path forward is to get all the parties together negotiating together to get the Northern Ireland assembly up and running, to get an end to criminality and paramilitary activity," he said.

But David Trimble, a Nobel laureate for his role in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that largely ended 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, said Hain had already got off on the wrong foot.

"The fact that government is still not putting pressure on the republican movement is ... a mistake," he told reporters. "Peter Hain will be a failure unless he changes his approach."

Political analysts were also pessimistic about Hain's chances of reconciling the province's feuding factions, especially after Blair's hefty majority in parliament was slashed and his authority weakened.

"People are looking at Mr Blair and saying 'this is not the Blair of 1997 and 1998,'" said Paul Bew, professor of Irish History at Queen's University. "Once he had this tremendous aura to drive things through and he achieved miracles in the early days but his limited shelf life is now a factor".

Same Mistakes

The 1998 deal, guaranteed by both Britain and Ireland, set up a semi-autonomous government in Belfast in which Protestant and Roman Catholic parties shared power.

But it was dogged by rows over the continued existence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitary group. In 2002 the assembly collapsed and London resumed direct rule.

Restoring it will be Hain's primary task.

Trimble, who resigned as leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party after losing his Westminster seat in the election, said Hain risked making the same mistakes as his predecessors.

"When republicans failed to deliver, they found governments were too indulgent of them and protected them," he said.

Unionists believe London and Dublin were weak in allowing the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein to remain in the assembly while the paramilitaries retained their weapons.

In last week's elections, Protestant Unionists determined to maintain links with Britain, and Republicans campaigning for a united Ireland, both made gains. Moderates were marginalised.

In an atmosphere of harsh rhetoric from both sides who look on history as one long remembered yesterday, brokering a deal could be even tougher for Hain.

"You cannot write off the prospect of some kind of accommodation down the line but it will be very hard work. The election results do not make it any easier," said Paul Dixon, politics lecturer at the University of Ulster.

Additional reporting by Paul Majendie