British prime minister Gordon Brown and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern meet at Stormont this morning for a summit of the British-Irish Council (BIC) and to symbolise the continuation of close relations between London and Dublin.
Mr Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair on June 27th, and the Taoiseach will meet representatives of the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, as well as First Minister Ian Paisley, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and delegations from the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
The council, set up under the Belfast Agreement, will be strengthened by the return to Stormont of devolution after five years of direct rule. It will be the first meeting of the body since the formation of new administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff, and the success of Scots and Welsh nationalists in winning executive power.
The agenda is said to concentrate on "strategic transport links" according to a Stormont source. But it is thought the symbolism of the renewal of the links between the British and Irish governments following Mr Brown's appointment as prime minister will dominate.
Unionists are particularly keen for the council to work well, given its inclusion of all the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.
Mr Brown and Mr Ahern are expected to hold a short bilateral meeting before arriving together at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, to meet Dr Paisley and Mr McGuinness and the other delegations. They are expected to leave the summit before midday.
The meeting will also set the scene for a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Conference in Armagh tomorrow which will address cross-Border issues. Unionists were keen for the council meeting to precede the talks between Government ministers and members of the Northern Executive, believing that the east-west structures of the Belfast Agreement have been overshadowed by the all-Ireland arrangements.
Last month Dr Paisley warned that he would not attend the council meeting unless Mr Brown confirmed he would attend. Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and their scrutiny committee of MLAs on June 20th, Dr Paisley emphasised the requirement, as he saw it, for the prime minister to attend the BIC. Confirmation of Mr Brown's attendance means that like Mr Blair, he will visit Northern Ireland within the first month of his premiership.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern rejected any notion that the east-west relationship could be played off against the north-south aspects of the Belfast Agreement. He told BBC Radio Ulster at the weekend that the two strands of the agreement "are not mutually exclusive" and both were important in their own right.
Delegates to the Armagh conference could hear the Minister for Foreign Affairs voice support for an all-Ireland parliamentary forum to include TDs and MLAs, and to back a new North-South consultative body likened to the Civic Forum.
It is also expected that the Ministers from Belfast and Dublin will receive updates on the cross-Border infrastructure projects, especially those funded by the Government. The next stage of the Dublin to Belfast motorway which reaches the Border south of Newry is expected to open on August 2nd and to be ahead of schedule and under budget.
The meeting will also hear reports on the upgrading of the road to Derry and the northwest, as well as on the progress of the completion of the all-Ireland electricity market and the setting up of a second electricity interconnector which will stabilise supplies in both jurisdictions.