THE Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition has given a guarded welcome to the Northern Secretary's request for "proximity talks" with the Armagh Orange Order aimed at reaching a compromise over Drumcree.
Both sides have agreed to attend the talks due to take place tomorrow at Dr Mo Mowlam's official residence at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down. Participants may remain in separate rooms throughout the session which, it is hoped, will overcome Orange Order difficulties about dealing with the coalition.
The Orange Order will not meet residents' groups believed to be fronts for Sinn Fein or the IRA. Portadown Orange men have a particular problem with coalition spokesman Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, who has served a prison sentence for IRA offences.
But the coalition says it represents broad nationalist opinion.
The coalition said that while its stated desire is for direct dialogue with the district master and officers of Portadown District Loyal Orange Lodge, "it is an inescapable reality that this present initiative has probably come too late in order to genuinely address the issues needed for a resolution of this year's parade".
Mr Mac Cionnaith said he hoped Dr Mowlam and the RUC would not use the talks to abdicate from their responsibilities to protect nationalists in Portadown from the "terror and intimidation" they experienced last summer.
Asked what he hoped to achieve from these talks, Mr Mac Cionnaith said: "When we go to these talks on Friday we need to make it clear that everything must be on the table, including the issues of having no marches on the Garvaghy Road.
"The Orange Order cannot be allowed to come in and say, as they have done through the recent Grand Lodge decision, that the marches, the routes that they take and the venues that they go to are not negotiable. Everything must be on the table."
In a statement, the coalition said it was willing to accept the talks as the first stage of a long term process, by such proximity talks would be meaningless unless they can guarantee, within a fixed and short time scale, to develop into fully fledged cross table dialogue, without exclusions".
. The Orange Order has drawn up plans aimed at bringing the North to a standstill if its members are not allowed to march through Drumcree, according to a report in the London Independent today.
Sources within the order told the newspaper that the plans for roadblocks and other disruptions will be put into operation if the RUC blocked their route on July 6th.