The government has announced that the review of the Good Friday Agreement will begin on February 3.

Formal discussions will get under way next month following weeks of informal talks aimed at restarting the suspended Northern Ireland devolution process.

The prime minister will discuss the review and other developments in Northern Ireland when he meets the Irish premier Bertie Ahern in Downing Street on Monday.

Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy will meet with the province's parties on Tuesday to outline their positions.

British and Irish ministers will then discuss the developments at an inter-governmental conference in Dublin on Thursday.

The Stormont assembly has been in limbo since October 2002 and elections at the end of last year prolonged the stalemate.

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, now the biggest single bloc in Ulster politics, wants to see a full renegotiation of the landmark Belfast agreement while republican Sinn Fein has refused to give any guarantees on behalf of the IRA that all terrorist weapons will be handed in before self government is restored.

The British and Irish governments confirmed on Monday that Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy will be meeting the parties to the Agreement in Belfast on Tuesday.

Tony Blair was meeting Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern over lunch on Monday.

The official Downing Street spokesman said he could not say how long the review of the agreement would take but added: "The prime minister has said it will be a short, sharp focused review."