British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern struggled to revive Northern Ireland's stalled peace process during a second day of intensive talks with the province's quarrelling political leaders on Tuesday.

Blair and Ahern kicked off the talks Monday at Hillsborough Castle, southwest of Belfast, in a bid to close the gap between pro-British unionists and Irish republicans five months after London suspended Northern Ireland's power-sharing institutions and reinstated direct rule.

The two leaders were expected to hold talks with the province's parties until 5:30 pm (1730 GMT), when they were to give a press conference -- a timetable likely to cause Blair to miss a chance to see Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, in London on Tuesday for talks on Iraq.

Blair is keen for a breakthrough at Hillsborough in order to focus all his attention on the Iraq crisis and to clear the way for proposed May 1 elections for a new Northern Ireland Assembly.

But a spokesman for Blair said no breakthrough was likely "this side of Saint Patrick's Day", March 17.

"We are not expecting immediate agreement," he said, adding that people were "being asked to take the final step this time and it is important to get it right. We need clarity all round."
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble wants firm guarantees that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) will finally lay down arms, while the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein is pressing London on police reform and other concessions.

Trimble, first minister in the power-sharing executive prior to its suspension, wants sanctions slapped on Sinn Fein if the IRA continues paramilitary activity.

"Sinn Fein will not be answerable or responsible for any actions of the IRA," a spokesman for Sinn Fein said Tuesday.

"Sanctions as advocated by David Trimble and the Ulster Unionists are outside the scope of the Good Friday Agreement. Our proposals are strictly within the remit of the agreement," he added.

But Sinn Fein said it had put forward a proposal which could break the deadlock on the issue of sanctions for parties who breach assembly rules.

A party source disclosed that a special sub-committee had been suggested as a way of dealing with any alleged breaches either by ministers in the executive or assembly.

Crucially, republicans insisted that this mechanism would not deal with any accusation that the IRA was still engaged in military operations.

"The Ulster Unionists are looking for a stick to beat Sinn Fein over the head with," a senior Sinn Fein source said.

"We're putting forward serious proposals about making the institutions work, not tearing them down." Trimble insists that the IRA must give up all of its guns and explosives -- much of it hidden inside the Irish republic -- and officially declare its armed struggle against British rule over before being allowed to return to government.

Sinn Fein, meanwhile, wants guarantees that thousands of troops will be pulled out of Northern Ireland, along with the dismantling of army watchtowers in republican areas.

It also wants policing and criminal justice to be devolved to the power-sharing assembly, as well as a pledge to allow on-the-run paramilitary prisoners to return, and moves on equality and human rights.

Britain suspended the assembly in October, and put Northern Ireland back under direct rule from London, to avert a threatened walk-out by Unionists that would have triggered the collapse of the power-sharing institutions set up under the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

The agreement aimed to end years of violence between the province's Protestant majority and Roman Catholics opposed to British rule - Sapa-AFP.