THE bitter six-year stand off over the annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree could be resolved within weeks, the local Orange lodge said yesterday as marchers backed away from a confrontation with security forces.

The bitter six-year stand off over the annual Orange Order parade at Drumcree could be resolved within weeks, the local Orange lodge said today as marchers backed away from a confrontation with security forces.

The Garvaghy Road residents' spokesman has called on the Orange Order to accept that any negotiations may result in no parade ever going down the contested route.

Detectives probing the murder of Northern Ireland lawyer Rosemary Nelson wanted to charge a prominent Mid Ulster loyalist with involvement in the killing, it emerged today.

More than 200 people have completed a college course in stewarding loyalist band parades, it emerged today.

Nationalist residents groups cast doubt today over their involvement in a conference on the Northern Ireland parades issue after two of their leading spokesmen received death threats from a renegade loyalist group.

Loyalist marchers blocked from walking through a nationalist area in Northern Ireland today threatened legal action after accusing the RUC of double standards.

The Northern Ireland Secretary says the eyes of the world will be on the Province in the run-up to the annual Drumcree Parade.

The Northern Ireland Parades Commission was due to announce today if it will overturn a ban on an Orange Order march through a nationalist area of Portadown.

The Northern Ireland Parades Commission today put on hold a decision whether or not to overturn a ban on this Sunday’s Drumcree Orange march.

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

Breandan Mac Cionnaith, the Garvaghy Residents' spokesman, has been told today his name is on a loyalist death list.