Fresh application for north Belfast parade
The Orange Order has applied to the Parades Commission to stage another Saturday march in north Belfast.
The Order also want to parade on Saturday 3 and 10 August.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered at police lines in north Belfast at the weekend in support of an Orange Order parade which was prevented from walking past the Ardoyne shopfronts, on the Crumlin Road, in accordance with a Parades Commission ruling.
The Order said it wanted to complete the return parade they were banned from making on the Twelfth of July.
A senior Orange Order leader has told UTV that talks with the residents association in Ardoyne have not been ruled out.
However, Mervyn Gibson, the Belfast County Grand Chaplain, said that ground rules need to be sorted before any discussions take place over parades which pass the area in north Belfast.
It comes after a protest by the Orange Order and supporters on the Woodvale Road on Saturday passed off peacefully.
“I think we’re not ruling anything out. We’ll certainly talk if it helps the situation.
He said he hoped a resolution would be found “so we can all live in a shared city and a shared Northern Ireland so the brethren at Ligoniel get home, so the brethren in Portadown get sorted out.”
Reacting to the news, Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly said the Orange Order “must show leadership” to move the situation on.
“The actions of the Orange Order in applying for another three contentious marches past Ardoyne, Mountainview and the Dales is not the action of a body seeking diffuse the situation,” he said.
“The vast majority of people will clearly see this is as an attempt to create a stand-off lasting over the summer months which will only raise tensions.
“The Richard Haass talks begin in September and there should be no escalation of the situation before these talks.”
He added: “I am also urging political unionism to use whatever influence it has to to ensure that this situation does not escalate and that talks are presented as the only way forward.”
On the Twelfth of July, police lines came under sustained attack as officers blocked Orangemen from marching past the nationalist Ardoyne district, as determined by the Parades Commission.
To date, 78 people have been arrested over rioting related to the parades dispute.
Seventy-one police officers – 68 from the PSNI and three drafted in from Great Britain – have been injured.
