British and Irish leaders and political parties worked into late night on Friday to make a deal for restoring the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, but no breakthrough were reported.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern are heaping pressure on the Irish Republic Army (IRA)'s political wing Sinn Fein to ensure the IRA does not remain a sticking point in the talks at Leeds Castle southeast of London, which started on Thursday.

"We wouldn't still be here unless work was being done - and work is being done," Blair's official spokesman said on Friday, noting the prime minister was prepared to stick with the talks, which are aimed at resolving issues surrounding the deadlock over the IRA's disarmament and power-sharing institutions at Stormont.

Although there has not been any breakthrough so far, the prime ministers are understood to be pleased that the talking has kept going, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Speaking on Friday evening, Sinn Fein's Pat Doherty dismissed rumors of a potential IRA statement aimed at satisfying the other parties. "That is a distraction. It is not about IRA words, it is about getting the institutions and the Good Friday Agreement embedded," he said.

It is widely thought that any deal to revive the province's power-sharing government would involve fresh peace commitments andacts of disarmament from the IRA.

"We need to see the IRA out of business, all of their guns and arms decommissioned and then we need to see acceptable structures in place, that is what the discussions are about," Gregory Campbell from the DUP, the main Protestant party in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's power-sharing government was suspended in October 2002 amid allegations of an Irish Republic Army's spy ringoperating inside government buildings.

The parties went into the assembly election last November against the background of a deadlocked political process.

Northern Ireland has been plagued by three decades of politicaland sectarian violence between Protestants committed to keeping the union with Britain and Catholics who want to end it and unite with the Irish Republic.

Source: Xinhua