Loyalist protesters today blocked off a main road in north Belfast to prevent a republican march from joining a major hunger strike march.
The 20 minute blockade of the Ligoniel Road was in response to the local branch of the loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry organisation being refused permission to drive their bus past the nationalist Ardoyne yesterday.
The Wolfe Tone flute band from the nationalist top end of Ligoniel was planning to join the parade in the Ardoyne commemorating the 20th anniversary of the IRA hunger strikes.
Mr Billy Hutchinson, the Progressive Unionist Party Assembly member for North Belfast said: "Nationalists are saying that the Apprentice Boys can't come down the Crumlin Road on a bus because it is seen to be a parade.
"I think loyalists are saying if the Apprentice Boys can't go down on a bus why should the Wolfe Tone band be allowed to go down on a bus?" he added.
Yesterday, police officers prevented the Ligoniel Walker Club of the Apprentice Boys of Derry of driving their bus down the Crumlin Road past the Ardoyne shops because it constituted a parade, and breached a ruling by the Parades Commission.
The club had been prevented by the Commission from marching through the area and had tried in vain to broker a last minute compromise to use their bus.
Mr Gerry Kelly, Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast, described the loyalist protest as a "nonsense", adding he did not believe that nationalist residents had objected to the organisation using their bus.
"That is a decision the RUC took on the ground. I don't think there would have been a problem from the people of Ardoyne," he added.
The Apprentice Boys have vowed to seek a judicial review into the decision to prevent them from travelling through the area to get to their main parade in Derry.
After a six and a half hour stand-off yesterday, Apprentice Boys representative Mr Tommy Cheevers branded the Parades Commission a "farce".
PA