A final peace deal in Northern Ireland seemed to be a step nearer last night as the Sinn Fein leadership prepared to sign up to the police and court systems.

In a significant move that keeps the deadline to restore power-sharing in March on track, Gerry Adams called a meeting of the party’s executive today and will propose putting the new approach to policing on the agenda at a special party conference next month.If agreed, it would mean that for the first time in the history of Northern Ireland all sections of the community were in support of the police and judicial systems.

The executive is expected to back the policy shift today but Sinn Fein leaders still face a battle to force the new policy through a full conference of members, known as ard fheis, where hardliners are certain to oppose it.

Mr Adams, Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, and Gerry Kelly, its spokesman on policing, have received death threats in recent weeks from disaffected and dissident republicans opposed to any change in the party’s policy towards the police service.

Yesterday’s move comes after talks during Christmas involving Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, the Sinn Fein leaders and Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary. Mr Blair has been in regular telephone touch with the others from his holiday home in Florida. Mr Adams said last night that considerable progress had been achieved.

Sinn Fein’s support for the police and the Unionists’ readiness to engage in power-sharing were the issues that remained to be resolved after the St Andrew’s agreement in October paved the way for a return of Stormont next year.

Mr Hain said that if Sinn Fein delivered on what had been agreed both through its conference and on the ground there would be “not a shred of an excuse” left for Unionists to avoid becoming involved in power-sharing. He said: “This is potentially a breakthrough on the scale of the IRA giving up its war last July and decommissioning its arsenal of weapons in September.”

It is understood that the Sinn Fein leadership has fulfilled the requirements of the St Andrew’s deal to endorse the police, encourage everyone in the community to co-operate fully with it and to play an active role in the policing and justice systems, including the Northern Ireland Police Board.

Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein would engage in a series of meetings with the wider republican and nationalist community across Ireland.

He acknowledged that persuading republicans to back his proposal would be difficult but added that “the achievement of a new beginning to policing, as promised in the Good Friday agreement, would be an enormous accomplishment. And I believe that we have now reached the point of taking the next necessary step.”

Mr Paisley has said that he will share power with Sinn Fein provided that IRA paramilitary and criminal activity has ended and that Sinn Fein proves its commitment to supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the courts and upholding the rule of law.

In return for its support for the PSNI, Sinn Fein has pressed for certain guarantees, including a speedy transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to a Stormont administration. However, senior DUP negotiators have ruled out giving a date before a Sinn Fein move on policing.

Some have also ruled out giving a date until they have had enough time to assess after a Sinn Fein move whether republicans are genuinely supporting the police.

Mr Adams said that he had asked those republicans who had threatened his life to talk to him about their grievances, but no one had come forward.

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