Face-to-face talks at Downing Street between Northern Ireland's new First Mininter, Peter Robinson, and Deputy Minister Martin McGuinness have ended.
A range of outstanding issues including devolution of policing and justice powers in Northern Ireland were covered in the talks.
The meeting was chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Afterwards, Mr Robinson said a lot of what had been said today could have been dealt with in Belfast, while Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness insisted the only way of dealing with the transfer of policing and justice was to discuss it in London.
The Irish Government was represented by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, who said he was pleased with the nature of the engagement and hopes it all goes well for a new chapter in Northern Ireland's Executive.
Mr Martin's presence at the talks was earlier questioned by Mr Robinson.
On his way into the talks this morning, Mr Robinson indicated that he would not be negotiating with the Irish delegation as the issues under discussion were what he described as 'regional matters'.
The talks follow yesterday's confirmation of Mr Robinson and Martin McGuinness as first and deputy first ministers.
Sinn Féin had been considering blocking Mr Robinson's nomination because it believes there has not been enough progress made towards the devolution of policing and justice powers in Northern Ireland.
There are also significant differences between the parties on proposed Irish language legislation and education reform.
Today's meeting was one of the few occasions on which Mr Brown has become directly involved in negotiations on Northern Ireland since he became prime minister.
This meeting was not in the style of the make-or-break negotiations which characterised the re-establishment of the power-sharing executive a year ago.
But Sinn Féin does see the replacement of Ian Paisley with Mr Robinson as a chance to focus minds on a number of differences between the parties arising from the St Andrews Agreement.
It was expected that Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness will take the lead in the discussions, with the two governments acting as facilitators.
