The bitter six-year stand off over the annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree could be resolved within weeks, the local Orange lodge said today as marchers backed away from a confrontation with security forces.
As the tension drained from Northern Ireland's most controversial parade, attention switched to an initiative aimed at brokering a final settlement.
Downing Street aide Mr Jonathan Powell, leading church and businessmen are all involved in efforts to break the impasse over the Orange Order's demand to walk down the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, Co Armagh.
The Order is prepared to end its ban on direct talks with representatives of the Catholic residents in return for being allowed to march the flashpoint route.
All future parades would then have to be agreed at a civil forum set up in the town to address both communities' concerns.
Nationalists have so far refused to sign up to the deal, claiming they are being asked to take too big a leap of faith.
But Mr David Jones, spokesman for the Portadown Orangemen said: "If people are prepared to work on it and deal with this there's no reason why we can't have a parade next Sunday or the following Sunday.
"If this moves as it should, then we wouldn't have a big difficulty around Drumcree next year or future years. But it's all up to the residents to come back and give us their response."
For the sixth year running a steel barrier blocked the Orangemen from the Garvaghy Road as they emerged from a service at Drumcree parish church.
Heavy security was present with police and British army prepared for any repeat of clashes that have erupted in previous years, often provoking violence across Northern Ireland.
But it soon became clear there was no appetite for trouble among the 700 marchers or the few hundred supporters who joined them.
With district master Mr Harold Gracey too ill to walk, secretary Mr Nigel Dawson handed in a letter of protest to police chiefs at the metal gates and said: "I would ask you to remove this hideous barrier and your men."
In the past huge crowds were whipped up into a frenzy of violence by passionate speeches at the barricade, but today the Orangemen returned to the church and heard deputy district master Mr David Burrows give a short address hitting out at the Parade's Commission which ruled against the march and vowing that one day Orangemen would set foot on the Garvaghy Road.
Within an hour nearly everyone had left the area. Despite the Orangemen's claims that they were prepared to adopt a fresh strategy, the residents' spokesman Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith insisted there was nothing new in the proposals.
He claimed the Order still wanted a guaranteed march before any dialogue took place and accused it of being able to control trouble around Drumcree to suit its purposes.
Mr Mac Cionnaith added: "The Orange Order must give a commitment to the possible outcome that there will be no parade down the Garvaghy Road.
"The Orange Order is capable of being able to switch the off button concerning violence, but given the experience of Drumcree one swallow doesn't make a summer."
But the police commander in charge of the security operation, assistant chief constable Stephen White, who was spat on by loyalists during ugly and violent scenes last year, praised the Order for helping to ensure a peaceful outcome.
He said: "The key difference this year, I believe, is that people took responsibility and indicated in advance they were going to take responsibility for the people they have here today.
"The Orange Order worked with police to say what needed to be done."
PA