Talks between the DUP and UK government are ongoing, the UK's Northern Ireland secretary has confirmed.
Chris Heaton-Harris said he cannot guarantee when the Stormont Assembly may return but recent speculation the talks have concluded is “completely not correct”.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said last weekend that he believed the negotiations between the UK government and DUP had “more or less come to a conclusion”.
Speaking to the media during a visit to Newry on Wednesday, Mr Heaton-Harris said: “Talks are ongoing. Progress is being made, and I’d like to think we can get somewhere.”
The DUP withdrew from the Stormont institutions last year in protest against the internal UK trade barriers created by the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The UK and EU agreed the Windsor Framework earlier this year in a bid to address unionist concerns about the protocol, but the DUP has indicated it will not return to Stormont until the UK government provides further assurances over Northern Ireland’s place in the UK.
On Monday, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said talks between the DUP and UK government “to create the conditions for the restoration of the Stormont Assembly” have not ended.
He said his party was “working hard” on the gaps to secure “an agreement that unionists as well as nationalists can support”, and a “sustainable basis for the restoration of cross-community consensus, which is critical to powersharing”.
