Talks between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin broke up today with both parties committing themselves to further discussions.
The meeting at Stormont Castle lasted for two hours and was part of a process aimed at stabilising Northern Ireland's power-sharing government.
First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness led their party delegations at the tow hours of talks in Stormont.
The parties are divided over a series of issues including the devolution of policing and justice powers, education reform, the future of the Maze prison site and the promotion of the Irish language.
A spokesman for Sinn Féin said: "The DUP and Sinn Féin met this morning and discussed a range of issues.
"We had a useful exchange and will be having further meetings in the coming days and weeks."
Earlier, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) repeated a demand for the republican movement to confirm that the IRA is gone for good.
Sinn Féin dismissed the comment as ridiculous, coming a day after an Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report found the IRA had effectively ceased to exist.
The British and Irish Governments said the IMC report should clear the way for political progress, but the DUP is insisting on further assurances that the IRA will never return.
Today, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said DUP demands for an IRA statement were nonsense, in light of the IMC report.
"I am saying categorically and definitively that the IRA - and everybody knows it - has left the stage," Mr Adams said.
"If the IRA is out of the stage, how do you even get a statement? I think the IMC said the IRA is redundant. Do you bring them back again? I mean, it's all ridiculous."
He told the BBC: "There is a real concern out there, and it isn't just among republicans, that elements within the DUP are not reconciled to the concept of partnership government.
Speaking this morning, the DUP's deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, denied his party had an obsession with the IRA.
"The obsession on the issue of policing and justice is not on the part of unionists, it is on the part of Sinn Féin," he said. "They are the people who continually raise this issue, although there is no great groundswell out in the community that that is the issue of primary importance."
Mr Dodds said the public was more concerned with bread and butter issues, but insisted community confidence in republican intentions had to be bolstered before justice powers were transferred to Stormont.
"For Gerry Adams to say 'well, you know the IRA are off the stage'... if that's the case, what's the problem then with saying that they're disbanded, they're gone for good?" asked Mr Dodds.
The St Andrews political deal of 2006, which laid the foundations for power-sharing between the DUP and Sinn Féin, set May this year as a target date for the transfer of justice powers.
The DUP insisted it will not move on the issue until the circumstances are right, but Sinn Féin threatened to pull its ministers out of the Stormont cabinet if progress is not made soon.
PA