Story highlights DUP and Sinn Féin yet to reach power-sharing deal

London could impose direct rule if no agreement is reached

London (CNN) Northern Ireland's leaders have been given extra time to strike a deal over the country's power-sharing executive, after they failed to reach agreement by Thursday's deadline.

The parties will be given until Monday to come to terms, Downing Street announced soon after the 4 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) cutoff, following another day of deadlock in Belfast.

James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, had warned the two largest groups, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, that failure to come to a compromise would have "profound and serious" implications.

The extension gives both sides the opportunity to avoid the prospect of direct rule from London and restore the country's power-sharing executive, which has not sat since January.

Though it would not be the first time direct rule has been imposed since the signing of the historic 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to decades of bitter sectarian conflict, the move would still be controversial.

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