Yellowknife (Mar 01/06) - A meeting with the new prime minister delivered no firm commitments on devolution and resource royalties, but Premier Joe Handley said he was assured it was all on the way.

Premier Handley says Conservatives aren't making any promises just yet.

Handley had his first face-to-face with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over the weekend in Ottawa. He also met with the new minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Jim Prentice.

Both encounters went well, said Handley, although Harper's Conservatives aren't making any promises just yet.

"He basically re-affirmed their position and felt that the current resource revenue sharing arrangement was unfair," said Handley.

It was about a year ago when Handley speculated that an agreement-in-principle on devolution and resource revenue sharing was coming "within weeks."

That never materialized, and now the Liberal government that Handley's team had been working with is sitting on the opposition benches. Handley said obtaining devolution of federal powers from Ottawa is the easy part.

It's getting resource royalties on the table that are so far proving elusive.

"We should not sign a devolution deal without knowing where we are with resource revenue," said Handley. "That's the biggest issue right now."

Prentice will be coming to Yellowknife later this month to "to talk specifics," the premier said.

"I hope we can work out a time frame for us - both for the long-term issue on resource revenue sharing as well as the short term," said Handley.

"We'll have a couple days when he comes up to sort through that."