After weeks of intense London-Brussels talks, momentum has been building towards a deal to revise the Northern Ireland Protocol - the arrangements agreed to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland when Britain exited the EU in 2020.
"I had positive conversations with political parties in Northern Ireland," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters.
In Belfast, Sunak focused his attention on the Democratic Unionist Party, whose opposition to the protocol must be overcome to make any deal work.
The other political parties that met Sunak on Friday said detail from the prime minister on a potential deal was "scant".
Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the militant Irish Republican Army that wants Northern Ireland to split from the UK and unite with Ireland, became the province's largest party for the first time at elections last year.