The Parades Commission has upheld its ruling that this year's annual Drumcree march cannot proceed down the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road.

Portadown Orangemen were urged tonight to recognise their awesome responsibility to Northern Ireland to protest peacefully at Drumcree at the weekend.

The decision to bar the Orange Order from marching down the nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown is a denial of natural justice, it was claimed today.

The North’s First Minister, David Trimble, has called for the Parades Commission to be disbanded and replaced with a tribunal-based system to protect the rights of both unionists and nationalists.

The South African mediator who was chairing talks between Orangemen in Portadown and the Garvaghy Road residents has resigned from the position following the decision by the Orange Order to withdraw from the talks.

The South African mediator who has been trying without success to resolve the long-running Drumcree Orange Order parade dispute announced he was quitting tonight.

Orangemen have set off on their annual Drumcree Parade urging their supporters to maintain a peaceful protest against the ban on their march.

Garvaghy Road Residents spokesman Breandan Mac Cionnaith claimed the Parades Commission had no other option but to ban Sunday’s Orange march.

David Trimble tonight called for the Drumcree Orangemen to be allowed to march down the flashpoint nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

New efforts to end the tense Orange Order stand-off at Drumcree are doomed to failure, it has been claimed.