Secret talks between Iraqi Sunni and Shia groups ended yesterday after they heard from Martin McGuinness and former loyalist prisoners about making peace in Northern Ireland.

The former chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, who is now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive, was one of 30 participants at the four-day seminar held at a secret location in Finland.

Organisers declined to say whether the meeting, attended by some 30 participants, helped to bring the two sides closer. But one source last night described the mood of the meeting as “guardedly optimistic”.

Meeri-Maria Jaarva, a spokeswoman for the conflict-prevention group Crisis Management Initiative, confirmed that the meeting was over, but declined to comment further.

The group, headed by the former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, convened the seminar together with the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies of the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Mr Ahtisaari, who did not attend the meetings, said it was now up to the Iraqis whether they want to continue the process started in Finland, the Finnish state broadcaster YLE reported.

Mr Ahtisaari was a member of an international group that inspected Provisional IRA weapons dumps in Ireland before they were decommissioned.

Although organisers have declined to identify participants, representatives of the radical Shia cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr; Adnan al-Dulaimi, the leader of the largest Sunni Arab political group; and Humam Hammoudi, the Shia chairman of the Iraqi Parliament’s Foreign Affairs committee, are reported to have attended the seminar.

From Northern Ireland, Mr McGuinness was accompanied by Leo Green, a former IRA hunger striker. Both men have also been involved in talks in the Spanish Basque Country and Sri Lanka.

Jeffrey Donaldson, of the Democratic Unionist Party and Billy Hutchinson, a former senior member of the Ulster Volunteer Force who served a lengthy prison sentence for murder, also attended. Mr Hutchinson went on to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for the Progressive Unionist Party.

Lord Alderdice, the former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was also present at the talks, as were representatives from South Africa. The venue and other details were kept secret to allow the participants to meet in peace, Ms Jaarva said.

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