Proximity talks, initiated by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair and involving the two sides in the Drumcree parade dispute are due to begin this morning, but last night there was caution about their prospects for success.
The talks invitation was issued at 4.30 p.m. yesterday by Mr Blair's chief of staff, Mr Jonathan Powell, to the County Grand Master of the Orange Order in Armagh, Mr Denis Watson, and the chief spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith.
There was speedy acceptance from the Orange Order, which stressed it was responding "in a positive manner". However, it said it was still intent on marching down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
Mr Mac Cionnaith, on behalf of the Garvaghy residents, gave the invitation a "cautious welcome" as the first step to direct talks. He said this approach had been tried twice without success. Earlier he met Northern business leaders to discuss the crisis.
The Blair initiative followed an intensive round of contacts, with the Prime Minister talking by telephone to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern and the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams. His officials were also in contact with the Orange Order, who met Mr Blair at Downing Street on Thursday, and with the Garvaghy residents, as well as the Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble and Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon.
The residents were said to be wary, given past experience with similar exercises, and any suggestion that the talks had a predetermined outcome or that Mr Blair had "cut a deal" with the Orangemen would precipitate their immediate collapse, observers said.
Mr Trimble hoped the talks would go "some way" towards achieving an accommodation. There were continuing reports that his position within his own party was becoming more difficult.
The bases for the contact talks, as outlined by Mr Powell, were:
No direct contact between the two sides;
Communication to be maintained through "facilitators";
No veto on the composition of the four-member delegation from each side;
The outcome to be agreed in full, prior to implementation;
Neither side should speak to the media while the process was going on.
"The purpose of the talks is to see if an accommodation can be reached between the two sides both for this year and for future years. There will be no preconditions," Mr Powell said.
As concern mounted over the level of violence in the vicinity of the church at Drumcree, it emerged that two fields used as car parks are the property of the Church of Ireland's central executive, the Dublin-based Representative Church Body.
A Church spokeswoman said that the possibility of legal action to evacuate the fields, which are on either side of the rectory, was examined on Thursday. "We couldn't possibly ask the police to come and see that through, it would be far too dangerous, and we would make life an awful lot harder by all those cars being chucked out on to the streets," she said.
The leaders of the four main churches issued a joint statement on the Drumcree crisis, calling on everyone "to act responsibly and within the law for the sake of the present and on behalf of the future generations".