As talks aimed at reviving the peace process in Northern Ireland entered the third day Saturday, it has become pressing for British and Irish leaders to reach a breakthrough by putting up pressure to break down differences between the main Catholic and Protestant parties.

The talks, which kicked off Thursday at Leeds Castle in Kent, southeastern England, and are scheduled to end by lunchtime Saturday, are seen as the most important since the negotiations that led up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern chaired the all-party talks, which are also joined by US President George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland Mitchell Reiss.

Although there has not been any breakthrough so far, the British and Irish governments seemed pleased that the talking has kept going.

"We wouldn't still be here unless work was being done, and work is being done," Blair's official spokesman said Friday.

However, local reporters on the scene described the mood of the negotiations as "very gloomy" since leaders of the Democratic Unionists (DUP) and the Irish Republic Army's (IRA) political wingSinn Fein -- the main Protestant and Catholic parties in Northern Ireland -- are still blaming each other.

"But they do agree on one thing. These negotiations are rapidly running out of time," said BBC correspondent Mark Simpson.

It's reported that the issue of how to run the Northern Ireland Assembly was proving much more problematic than the decommissioning of weapons by paramilitary groups during the talks

Speaking on Friday evening, Sinn Fein vice president Pat Doherty dismissed rumors of a potential IRA statement aimed at satisfying other parties' demands.

"That is a distraction. It is not about IRA words, it is about getting the institutions and the Good Friday Agreement embedded," Doherty said.

It is widely believed that any deal to revive the province's power-sharing government would involve fresh peace commitments and acts 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 said.

Northern Ireland's power-sharing government was suspended in October 2002 amid allegations that an IRA spy ring operated 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 political and 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