Madonna taking boys to live in US

The pop star is understood to have been given temporary permission to remove their two sons from Britain. The agreement is expected to be made permanent within a fortnight.

A source close to the negotiations said today: "Everything is going to be resolved in the next couple of weeks. Everything is going well. It's pretty amicable at the moment. Things are progressing."

A legal insider said arrangements had been resolved and that it was "unheard of" for such agreements to be overturned at a later date. The source said: "There was a issue about where the children should live but that has been decided in Madonna's favour."

The decision paves the way for Madonna, 50, to take sons Rocco, eight, and David, three, who was adopted from a Malawi orphanage, to live with her in New York. The father of Madonna's eldest child, Lourdes, 12, lives in New York and it has been widely reported that she is keen to move back there.

She is said to be dating Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid player in baseball, who plays for the New York Yankees. Her spokeswoman today refused to comment on her post-divorce plans. The agreement over where the children should live brings to an end a divorce battle which has seen Ritchie, 40, pick up close to £45 million in cash, a country estate in Wiltshire and a London pub.

The couple were granted a "quickie" divorce in November but had failed to settle their differences over the children. Ritchie had wanted Rocco, upon whom he dotes, to be educated in England but Madonna's lawyers argued that the children should not be split up and should remain with their mother.

It is likely his sons will divide their time between London and New York but be educated in the US. Today Madonna announced a new European tour beginning on 4 July at the O2 Arena, with tickets costing as much as £175, and ending in Slovenia on 20 August. That would allow Madonna to hand over the boys to Ritchie while she is on tour.

The "amicable" resolution will earn the couple praise for putting their differences aside for the sake of their children. It will also be seen as a triumph for the couple's solicitors Fiona Shackleton, representing Madonna, and Helen Ward, for Ritchie, who managed to keep the case from going to trial and avoid the unseemly row that engulfed Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills. That case took two years to resolve and cost millions of pounds in legal fees.