The DUP Junior Minister and Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness were at a secret location in Finland over the weekend in a bid to bring peace to war-torn Iraq.

Deal

More than 35 Iraqi negotiators are in the Finnish capital Helsinki to try and thrash out some sort of peace deal.

Mr Donaldson and Mr McGuinness were invited to get involved by Dublin-born professor and peace campaigner Padraig O'Malley.

Speaking from Helsinki yesterday, Mr Donaldson said the negotiations had gone very well.

"It was a very positive and useful enagagement.

"There were 36 members of the Iraqi parliament here and representatives from all the main political groupings.

"They made significant progress in agreeing the principles to take forward the negotiation process which we hope will help to resolve the conflict.

"Such is the extent of the positive enagagement that more talks are planned in Baghdad and Northern Ireland and South African facilitators will be going out to participate in the next round of talks."

Team

The Lagan Valley MP said this would mean himself and Mr McGuinness teaming up again.

He said their experiences helped to make the Iraqis understand how to make progress.

"We shared our experiences of the political process in northern Ireland and how we were able to solve the the various difficulties we encountered and and that helped the people from Iraq.

Ulster visit

In another link to strife-torn Iraq, a delegtion of officials from the southern city of Basra are travelling to Northern Ireland to learn lessons about rebuilding an economy hit by years of sectarian conflict.

An official from Invest NI has been seconded to the Basra Investment Promotion Agency to advise on atttacting inward foreign investors, even while conflict is still ongoing.

The Iraqi officials will tour a number of Northern Ireland sites including the former Harland and Wolff shipyard which is now a hi-tech business park, and the Titanic Quarter.

They will also visit Springvale Training centre which has trained young people on both sides of the sectarian divide for many years.