Nationalists have threatened a massive protest after the Parades Commission reversed a ruling re-routing an Orange parade in west Belfast this afternoon.
The Whiterock parade crosses from the Protestant Shankill road to the Catholic Springfield Road. It had been a source of conflict in recent years as republican protesters clashed with loyalists and the RUC.
Originally, the commission had ruled the parade could not follow its traditional route down Ainsworth Avenue, skirting the peace line, and then crossing onto the nationalist side at Workman Avenue.
Instead, lodges would have marched further up the Shankill Road, down Woodvale Avenue and onto Workman Avenue. Accompanying bands and supporters would have separated from the parade and rejoined it via the West Circular Road.
The commission accepted a revised plan from the Orange Order, which allowed the Orange lodges to travel their traditional route while band members split off from the parade at March Street and rejoined it through the former Mackies factory, close to the junction of Workman Avenue and the Springfield Road.
Conditions were imposed on the parade, with music prohibited between March Street and Springfield Parade. Two feeder parades were forbidden from marching past the Ardoyne shop fronts in north Belfast, the site of rioting last week.
Springfield residents' spokeswoman Ms Frances McAuley accused the commission of bowing to RUC pressure to allow the parade to go ahead and warned tension was reaching breaking point in her community.
"People are recognising Springfield is on a par with Drumcree and the Ormeau Road," she said.
In a separate development, a spokesman for the Parades Commission said it had recently rejected requests from senior Orange Order figures for secret talks. "That's not the way the commission goes about its business. It is a statutory body," he said, adding the commission would welcome open discussions with the order, which has a policy of not engaging with it.