The Taoiseach has described his historic meeting with DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley as "businesslike and cordial".
Speaking after the meeting in the Irish embassy in London Mr Ahern said the DUP had expressed its willingness to engage constructively and co-operatively in the upcoming review of the Belfast Agreement.
"We are here to try to do business and I think Dr Paisley and his colleagues said they were prepared to engage in that. Let's see how we get on.
"Today was a start, but it was a good start." Mr Ahern said he hoped contacts with the DUP would be broadened over the coming weeks.
"We want to see everybody's mandate respected and we want to see, as best as we can, an end to violence, whether that violence comes from one community or the other," Mr Ahern added.
Mr Paisley said the "big issue" for the review was taking guns out of the hands of paramilitaries. Mr Paisley told the Taoiseach "a majority of unionists will not accept the Belfast Agreement as the basis for the future".
But Mr Ahern insisted the review would look only at the operation of the Agreement and that "the fundamentals are not up for negotiation".
"The meeting was clear and distinct. Each party put their positions clearly and distinctly and I think now we have to face up to the big issue, and the big issue is to get the guns out of the hands of the terrorists."
Asked if he concurred with this assessment, Mr Ahern, also speaking inside the embassy, responded: "I think what Dr Paisley said is that he wants to see the end of the guns in Northern Ireland. We agree to that."
Mr Paisley said the DUP wanted "good neighbourly relations" with the Republic.
Although he had not personally held talks with Mr Ahern in the peace process, he played down suggestions that today's meeting was "historic", stressing that the party had previously sat down with Irish officials.
Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams welcomed the meeting. However he said during a visit to Galway that Mr Ahern and his colleagues had to "defend, promote and implement the Agreement and stand firm against those who would seek to destroy it".