The spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, insisted yesterday that "no agreement had been reached on anything" after the British government announced a further round of talks would begin in the North next week aimed at resolving the impasse at Drumcree.
Emerging from a 60-minute meeting with the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, at Downing Street, he claimed London had attempted to "bounce" the residents' coalition into the talks. He said they would not get involved in talks until the mechanism, personnel and remit had been agreed. He rejected any suggestion of proximity talks, insisting that to accept them "is acceptance of our second-class citizenship".
After the meeting, Downing Street insisted the talks would begin as planned on Monday. Under the proposal for the talks, it is understood, a Northern Ireland Minister, either the Security Minister, Mr Adam Ingram, or the junior Northern Ireland Minister, Mr George Howarth, will meet representatives of the residents' group and the Orange Order. The Parades Commission is expected to send observers and the likelihood is that the talks will involve separate meetings with the residents and the Orange Order. A Downing Street spokesman said: "We intend that the talks should be clearly focused and intensive, and hope that they will lead to a lasting resolution to this long-running problem. We would like the residents to be there and very much hope they will be there."
Rejecting the talks proposal as "misleading", Mr Mac Cionnaith said the announcement was a complete surprise. "At no point during the meeting was it ever suggested that we had reached agreement on any of the main elements of a process, no format was agreed . . . Our first objective is to get an agreed process, and we will not get involved in a process that focuses on the march. "There are many more issues involved, such as inequality and sectarianism, and we will not get involved until further discussions take place on the scope and structure of the talks. Until that is clarified, there is no agreement.
"No one would expect anyone to get involved in talks they had not been a party to agreeing. It is the government's job to implement the Good Friday agreement and say how they will apply those principles in Portadown."
He said representatives of the group hoped to discuss the wider issues facing the nationalist community in Portadown with Mr Ingram when he returns from the United States at the end of next week, but until then "things are on hold".
The residents' group will meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in Dublin today. Mr Mac Cionnaith said he would raise the inequality and discrimination faced by nationalists in Portadown.