Northern Ireland talks due to resume today

After weeks of concern that the Northern Ireland peace talks were on the point of collapse, they will resume later today with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, saying he is cautiously optimistic about the prospects of a breakthrough.

The talks -- in Belfast -- had seemed doomed following several sectarian killings, which put the paramilitary ceasefires in the province under strain.

But an intervention last week by the British Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, has persuaded two small parties with links to the Protestant paramilitaries to say they will now attend in spite of their reservations about British government concessions to Roman Catholic nationalists.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service