There are growing fears of further violence in north Belfast next week following a new impasse involving the Apprentice Boys organisation, which wants to parade past the nationalist Ardoyne on Saturday week, and local nationalists.
In recent years, the annual morning Apprentice Boys feeder parade in north Belfast to the main "relief of Derry" parade has passed off without major incident.
But following the violence as Orange Order members and their supporters marched home past Ardoyne on the evening of the Twelfth of July, there is now concern of a similar eruption of trouble on the morning of Saturday week.
Such violence would be of concern to the British and Irish governments, which were hoping the marching season would conclude reasonably calmly so the September talks aimed at restoring devolution could take place in a positive climate.
The Parades Commission is due today or tomorrow to decide whether the Apprentice Boys feeder parade should be allowed. Unlike the Orange Order, in recent years the Apprentice Boys has engaged with the commission and to a significant extent with nationalists to try to make its parades more acceptable.
In Derry, the organisation helped defuse tensions by organising a community festival centred around the annual city parade.
Such engagement has ensured that the parade in Derry and the feeder parades were allowed by the Commission and that generally they were held peacefully.
But following the violence in Ardoyne around the Orange parade on the evening of the Twelfth of July, when local republicans played their part in preventing rioting nationalists causing serious injury to British soldiers and police officers, there is now a question mark over whether the feeder parade will be allowed.
Ardoyne nationalists met in the area on Tuesday evening and declared their opposition to the feeder parade. Sinn Féin and the SDLP have supported them in calling for the Parades Commission to ban the feeder parade.
Mr Tommy Cheevers, of the Apprentice Boys in Belfast, said there was absolutely no reason why the feeder parade should be banned or rerouted.
He said the Apprentice Boys was not involved in the Orange parade on the Twelfth of July and that they posed no threat of violence to anyone on Saturday week.
"I am not the one making threats. If people want to march peacefully, they should be allowed march peacefully. If people want to protest, they should be allowed to protest, and local leaders should ensure the protests are peaceful," he said.
The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, yesterday called on the Apprentice Boys to be "magnanimous" and call off its feeder parade past the nationalist Ardoyne on August 14th.
After Mr Adams and other Sinn Féin representatives met the Parades Commission yesterday, he said he was seriously concerned at the "potential for more difficulties in the time ahead".
