A DEADLOCK in talks in Lome between Sierra Leone’s government and the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has eased, Togo’s Foreign Minister Joseph Kokou Koffigoh said late on Sunday. He said the two sides agreed in a meeting on Saturday to consider each other’s positions, after pleas from Togo’s President Gnassingbe Eyadema and other mediators from the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations. They met separately with government and rebel delegations, whose members had come to a stumbling block over the question of power sharing, including a demand by the RUF for a transitional government. The two sides have been in Lome since May 25 to hammer out an accord that would put an end to nine years of civil war which has claimed more than 20000 lives and left millions homeless and injured.