Mike Pence met Democratic congressional staffers to try to break a deadlock over a proposed border wall.Washington: U.S.

Vice President Mike Pence and other senior Trump administration officials met on Saturday with Democratic congressional staffers to try to break a deadlock over a proposed border wall and end a two-week-old partial government shutdown.President Donald Trump is demanding $5.6 billion to build a wall along US border with Mexico but Democrats in control of House of Representatives this week passed a bill to reopen government without providing additional funding for wall.Trump says he will not sign bill until he gets money for wall.With two sides sticking to their positions, a quarter of federal government has been closed for two weeks, leaving 800,000 public workers unpaid.Before entering talks on Saturday, Pence said in a tweet that administration's goal was not just to end shutdown but "to provide funding to end crisis at our southern border, achieve real border security to build wall!"Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a senior adviser, also attended meeting at White House, along with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and new White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.They were negotiating with senior staff for top Democrats in Congress.Nancy Pelosi, new Democratic speaker of House of Representatives, said this week that Trump's proposed wall was "immoral" and a "waste of money."Trump reiterated his demand for a border wall in a series of tweets on Saturday."The Democrats could solve Shutdown problem in a very short period of time," Trump said.

"All they have to do is approve REAL Border Security (including a Wall), something which everyone, other than drug dealers, human traffickers and criminals, want very badly!"Trump threatened on Friday to take step of using emergency powers to build wall without Congress' approval.

Such a move would almost certainly be met with legal challenges.(Except for headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)