The Northern Ireland First Minister, Mr David Trimble, and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, have both issued grim warnings about the dangers facing Northern Ireland if the Drumcree crisis is not resolved within the next few days In advance of today's meeting between the Orange Order and the British Prime Minister in London, they both accused groups of people who had failed in the recent referendum and election of using the current crisis to try to wreck the new Assembly. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, is also due in London, where he will meet the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam.
Yesterday she signalled that early prisoner releases of loyalists might be halted if evidence emerged of terrorist involvement in recent disturbances.
Mr Mallon said he was referring to the Rev Ian Paisley and Orange hardliner Mr Joel Patton. Mr Trimble launched an attack on Mr Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein.
The disruption sweeping the North entered its fifth day today following widespread loyalist violence yesterday, including gun and petrol attacks on the security forces and on Catholic homes and public buildings. Orange sources have indicated that among the proposals to be put by the order to Mr Blair in London today are a "civic forum" to meet in Portadown before the weekend to discuss the parades issue and a commitment from the residents to a future Orange parade down the Garvaghy Road some time in the next year.
However, it is understood the proposed forum would not include elected representatives, thus ruling out the residents' spokesman, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith.
Mr Blair was originally due to travel to Belfast today to announce an equality commission as part of the Belfast Agreement package, but it was decided at the last moment that this would be unhelpful.
Portadown Orange leaders reacted angrily to yesterday's Downing Street statement that there would be no overturning of the Parades Commission's ban on the Orangemen marching down the Garvaghy Road.
Mr Trimble and Mr Mallon appeared at separate press conferences at Stormont this afternoon, after unexplained differences of opinion between them. Mr Trimble warned that "if we do not manage within the next couple of days to find an accommodation" on the Drumcree stand-off, "then this society in Northern Ireland, and the people of Portadown in particular, face a fairly bleak prospect."
He said that "very little progress" had been made in his discussions on Tuesday night with Co Armagh Orange leaders and in Mr Mallon's discussions with residents' leaders in Garvaghy Road. Mr Trimble confirmed that an emissary of his had met Mr Mac Cionnaith last Friday to see "if there was any realistic prospect of a change of approach on his part", but he had met "with utter intransigence".
Mr Mallon said it would be "an uphill struggle" to find a resolution to the crisis before next Monday's July 12th parades. He and Mr Trimble, however, were doing "all that we possibly can to make sure that it is resolved, if it is resolvable". They would not give up in their efforts to encourage dialogue to solve "these areas of controversy which are in effect localised but are having a devastating effect upon all the people of the North of Ireland". He called on all those with local influence who had so far not used it to help bring about an accommodation to get involved now.
He accused Mr Joel Patton of "exerting an insidious influence within the Orange Order" and said the Rev Ian Paisley had "made no secret of the fact that he sees this as an opportunity to win what he couldn't win at the ballot box, at the barricades".
Such people, he said, were not primarily interested in the issues surrounding the Drumcree stand-off but were "trying to use this problem, this difficulty, for their own wider reasons".
Mr Mallon said the crisis was not just a Portadown issue or an Ormeau Road issue or an issue about other potential flashpoints. "There is a choice facing all of the people in the north of Ireland and that choice is between what could become uncontrollable confrontation on the one hand and accountable political action on the other."