The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, arrived in Northern Ireland yesterday afternoon as behind-the-scenes efforts were being made to resolve the Drumcree Orange parade dispute. He said he hoped an accommodation could be reached before Sunday's parade in Portadown.
Mr Blair said it was "time for people to show courage, vision and imagination", reach an accommodation over the parade and not take their difficulties "out on the streets". He added: "I believe there is tremendous goodwill in Northern Ireland towards the whole peace process. People desperately want to find an accommodation."
The Prime Minister was speaking after a joint meeting at Stormont with the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon. Their discussions covered the programme of work facing the newly-elected heads of the shadow executive, but the issue of Drumcree was the main topic. Mr Blair later had meetings with church leaders in Northern Ireland and with the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, in Parliament Buildings at Stormont.
Mr Blair said he stood by the ruling by the Northern Ireland Parades Commission and urged the Orange Order and the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition to enter into a dialogue to resolve the situation. "I ask people to listen to the voice of reason, to realise that, of course, the Parades Commission has made its ruling and that ruling stands." He believed that, with goodwill, people could reach an accommodation to avert violence in Northern Ireland.
"The Parades Commission has made it clear in a sense that the best possible outcome is accommodation and negotiation. After all, there are different traditions in Northern Ireland that need to be able to live together and get along together. If there isn't accommodation, then whatever happens is always going to be worse for relations between the two communities."
Asked whether he had had any contact with the Garvaghy Road residents or the Orange Order, Mr Blair said he had not visited Northern Ireland to "negotiate" the parades issue, but he would do all he could to encourage dialogue. His prime reason for visiting the North was to congratulate Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon on their nominations by the Assembly and to strengthen the peace process.
He said the majority of people in Northern Ireland had "voted for the future", as indicated in the referendum and the recent Assembly elections, and only "small number" from both communities wanted to "stay in the past".
He continued: "I would say to anyone who has any influence in this situation: use that influence for the future, use it for the good, recognise that people have different points of views and the task of reasonable people is to find a way through that."
Meanwhile, the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition said that they had been ignored in the negotiations to resolve the parade impasse. No one had attempted to have direct negotiations with the residents' group, according to its spokesman, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith. "Nothing is happening in Portadown. No one is talking directly to us."
Mr Mac Cionnaith said that the residents were hoping to see the decision taken by the Parades Commission implemented. The decision to reroute the Orange parade was the "only possible correct decision that could be made".
But the Portadown Orange District spokesman, Mr David Jones, said Orangemen remained determined to parade down the Garvaghy Road. However, he added that they wanted a resolution which would be "satisfactory for both sides".
In a statement later last night, the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition said that women in the area would re-establish the "justice camp" on the Garvaghy Road to ensure that the Parades Commission's decision to ban the Orangemen from passing nationalist houses was upheld.
The attacks on 10 Catholic churches in Northern Ireland meanwhile added to the tension in the run-up to Sunday's parade in Portadown. Yesterday, Mr Blair went to the burned-out St James's Church, near Crumlin in Co Antrim, immediately on his arrival in the North. The Loyalist Volunteer Force is being blamed for carrying out the arson attacks.
Speaking in front of the 200year-old church, Mr Blair said that the extremists who carried such attacks did not represent the people of Northern Ireland. They represented only the past. The future of Northern Ireland should be determined democratically by the people through the Belfast Agreement and the new Northern Ireland Assembly. "I think of these acts of destruction as the past past in Northern Ireland, and we are trying to give people a future that leaves acts of barbarism behind us. What consoles me always is that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland repudiate these acts of violence."
Asked what messages he had for Catholics living on the Garvaghy Road and for the Orange Order, Mr Blair replied: "I say: why not try and find an accommodation in the interests of everyone here in Northern Ireland? If people ask themselves what is the settled will of the people in Northern Ireland, well, we've had the outcome, now determined in two separate votes. Firstly, in the referendum, then in the Assembly elections, where the vast majority, not just a small majority, opted for peace and democracy, opted to say we want a better future for our children, different from the past.
"Now, what I say to anybody who has any influence in this situation is: use that influence for the future. Use it for the good."
The Sinn Fein President, Mr Adams, said last night that the issue of Drumcree could only be resolved through direct dialogue between those wanting to march down the Garvaghy Road and the residents of the area. "If the Orangemen want to go down the Garvaghy Road, they are compelled to talk to people in the area."
Mr Adams emphasised that he and Sinn Fein would "play no part in pressurising the people of Garvaghy Road" to allow the Orange parade through. It was an issue of equality that the democratic rights of people from the Garvaghy Road were upheld. He appealed to Orangemen to voluntarily reroute their parade, adding: "It is not an infringement of their rights."
The Sinn Fein president said that he wanted to see the issue resolved, but it was up to the British government to uphold the rights of the residents in the area. It was up to Orangemen to recognise those rights and it was up to unionist leaders to use their influence to reach an accommodation. What needed to be resolved was the fact that no one but the Irish Government was talking directly to the residents.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, had a telephone conversation with the British Prime Minister last night, his second in a day, about this weekend's Drumcree parade, writes Geraldine Kennedy, Political Correspondent. According to a spokesman, Mr Ahern was engaged in extensive contacts yesterday in an attempt to find a compromise which would prevent further violence in the aftermath of the spate of arson attacks on Catholic churches across the North early yesterday.