Orange Order leaders gather in Belfast today to formulate a strategy on Drumcree as the Parades Commission makes its final deliberations on the second most contentious loyal order parade of the North's marching season, the Apprentice Boys parade in Derry next Saturday.
More than 100 members of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland will meet in east Belfast to ensure that the blocked Drumcree Orange parade remains firmly on the political and security agenda. In Derry meanwhile efforts continue to break the deadlock over Saturday's annual Apprentice Boys parade.
The Parades Commission must decide on Monday whether to allow the parade along Derry's historic walls, or to reroute it.
The commission must also decide by Monday whether several so-called feeder parades to the main Apprentice Boys march in Derry and to a Royal Black Institution march in Tempo, Co Fermanagh, also on Saturday, will be allowed.
The main flashpoint feeder parades next Saturday on which the commission must adjudicate are in Bellaghy, Co Derry, Dunloy, Co Antrim, the lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, and Newtownbutler and Roslea, both in Co Fermanagh.
The decision on the Apprentice Boys feeder parades could be crucial in determining whether the main Derry parade can proceed peacefully.
Last year the Bogside Residents' Group (BRG) called off protests when the RUC placed restrictions on the feeder marches in Bellaghy, Dunloy and on the lower Ormeau Road.
It has applied to stage a protest on Saturday at the war memorial on Derry's Diamond which could lead to confrontation between the two sides.
Meanwhile, an Orange Order spokesman said its ruling body, the Grand Orange Lodge, is meeting today to plan how Portadown members might eventually parade along their chosen route.
