Unionists have been engaging in "quiet conversations" with an SDLP forum on Irish unity for the past 18 months, the party's leader Colum Eastwood has said.
He said people from "very different backgrounds" have been meeting with the New Ireland Commission, which was set up to discuss future constitutional arrangements on the island.
Mr Eastwood described how the civic forum, which is moving into a "public phase" of work, is central to the SDLP's "new mission" around "building a movement for a new Ireland".
