NI talks break up without agreement

Talks aimed at breaking the logjam in Northern Ireland tonight have broken up tonight without agreement being reached.

The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, expressed his disappointment within the last few minuts when he announced that the parties were "not going to reach an agreement" tonight

Earlier, at a joint press conference, the Taoiseach Mr Ahern and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair said they would continue working in an effort to resolve the current "glitch" in the peace process.

"It wouldn't be the Northern Ireland peace process without the odd glitch to come along," Mr Blair said.

He said the UUP wanted "a greater degree of particularity as to what was actually put beyond use," in today's act of decommissioning.

He added that Mr Trimble's party were also seeking "some clarity about the future process with respect to decommissioning".

"It is," he said "going to take us a little time to do that. We are very very close to what I think would be a historic day."

The Taoiseach said that while he would like to have concluded the sequence of events "that was going so well" today, there was a difficulty, "an obstacle and we have to try and resolve it if we can and we will do all we can to deal with it.