REPRESENTATIVES of three key nationalist areas which are regularly flashpoints during Orange parades have agreed jointly to seek immediate negotiations with the Orange institutions.
The Bogside, Lower Ormeau and Garvaghy Road residents' groups said yesterday they were committed to finding a negotiated solution and had agreed on a joint negotiating platform. They recognised "the extreme gravity of the current situation facing the entire community".
Their statement said that "the purpose of such negotiations would be to negotiate a universal agreement applying to all contentious marches." Such an agreement would be founded on reconciling the right to march with the right of consent of the host community, they said. The negotiations would be genuine and no outcome would be ruled out.
The Garvaghy Road group has also called for an independent, international tribunal to investigate the role of the RUC at Drumcree.
Membership of the tribunal should be drawn from parliamentarians and judicial figures from the European Union, Britain, the Republic and the US, according to Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Road group.
He alleged there had been a "virtual mutiny" in the ranks of the RUC on July 10th which had resulted in overturning the original re routing decision.
The three residents' groups said yesterday they would further seek meetings with the leaders of all political parties, of the four main churches, of the Northern Ireland Congress of Trade Unions, and both governments. They said the urgency of the situation demanded that negotiations commence as soon as possible.
The groups expressed anger and dismay at the remarks of the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, that he could not guarantee that some massive demonstration of force would not overwhelm the RUC on another occasion.
"Such an affirmation of the Orange veto undermines the efforts of those who are working towards accommodation and agreement," they said.
Meanwhile the North's Compensation Agency confirmed that the cost of meeting some 450 compensation claims received so far in respect of damage to property during last week's riots could total at least £20 million.
The commercial centre of Lisburn, Co Antrim, was evacuated for several hours yesterday following a bomb warning that turned out to be a hoax. A caller to a Belfast radio station, purporting to speak for the INLA, said that several devices had been planted in the busy shopping town.
The IRSP, in a statement yesterday, said that on the evidence of recent incidents there was not now a loyalist ceasefire and there had not been for some time.