Nationalists and loyalists in Derry have struck an accommodation over Saturday's Apprentice Boys' parade in the city - and set a possible marker on how the bitter Drumcree dispute could be resolved.
The news that the Apprentice Boys and the Bogside Residents' Group (BRG) had reached an understanding which will allow the parade on Derry's walls was greeted with great relief by local people, politicians and the police.
The deal was reached after three days of intensive "shuttle negotiations".
The Apprentice Boys agreed that local parent clubs would parade the walls on Saturday morning behind a single band - but that the band would not play when passing the stretch over the nationalist Bogside.
The BRG in return has cancelled a mass nationalist demonstration, originally planned to confront the 10,000 Apprentice Boys who will converge on Derry for the main parade on Saturday afternoon.
A loyalist demonstration to confront the nationalist protest has also been cancelled.
In another concession, ostensibly minor but important to this resolution, the Apprentice Boys agreed that the main parade would walk past the War Memorial in Derry's city centre rather than around the monument.
The Parades Commission has also imposed restrictions on potentially troublesome "feeder parades" to the Derry march from Dunloy, Bellaghy and the Lower Ormeau in Belfast. This decision is understood to have been important in persuading the BRG to accept the agreement. The Apprentice Boys' governor, Mr Alistair Simpson, and the BRG leader, Mr Donncha Mac Niallais, described the agreement as significant and hoped it would help to ease cross-community tensions in Derry in the long term.
They, along with Parades Commission chairman Mr Alistair Graham, in a strongly implied reference to the Orange Order, suggested that the machinery used to reach the understanding could also be used to solve disputes such as the continuing though now token Orange standoff at Drumcree.
Neither side met directly during the negotiations. Officers appointed by the Parades Commission shuttled between the Apprentice Boys and the BRG during 15 hours of continuous talks through Saturday evening into Sunday morning, and also during talks yesterday.
The Orange Order has engaged in some proximity talks with the Garvaghy Residents' Group but they have been singularly unsuccessful.
Mr Simpson of the Apprentice Boys said the Orange Order must make its own decisions on parades, but added: "I think the rest of the people of Northern Ireland have to take note of what has happened here. If we can strike an agreement where we will have a trouble-free city on Saturday, then surely it sets the stage for other areas."
Mr Graham of the Parades Commission praised the two sides and the commission's officers who handled the negotiations. He hoped the accommodation "would provide a sound basis for further progress" in other contentious parades.
Mr Mac Niallais said while the BRG would have preferred direct talks with the Apprentice Boys, this accommodation "shows what can be done.
