Mubasher: A divorce agreement between the UK and the European Union (EU) is still possible in the next 24 or 48 hours, UK Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said on Tuesday.

“We’re not quite there yet,” Prime Minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy Lidington told BBC radio.

“We are almost within touching distance now, he said, adding that Premier May said “it can’t be a deal at any price.”

“Still, possible but not at all definite, I think pretty much sums it up,” Lidington said when asked if he was saying that a deal can be concluded within the next 24 or 48 hours.

Ahead of a cabinet meeting in Downing Street, Lidington expressed his optimism because Brexit negotiations “have managed to get things down to a small number of difficult issue outstanding.”

Talks between UK chief negotiator Olly Robbins and Michel Barnier’s EU team carried on into late Monday and yielded progress.