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CALGARY – After weeks of protests and blockades that led to three days of face-to-face meetings, an agreement between the federal government, British Columbia and hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs has been struck to potentially end the pipeline dispute.

Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and B.C.’s Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser said Sunday that a tentative deal has been reached with hereditary chiefs opposed to the $6.6-billion Coastal GasLink pipeline.

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“We, I believe, have come to a proposed arrangement that will also honour the protocols of the Wet’suwet’en people and clans,” Bennett said after three days of meetings in Smithers, B.C.

“What we’ve worked on this weekend needs to go back to those clans and then we have agreed as ministers that we will come back to sign it if its is agreed upon by the Nation,” she said.

The agreement represents an unexpected milestone in the dispute after a previous round of talks last month failed to resolve the disagreement in northern B.C. that has since spread across the country in the form of rail blockades.