Portadown Orange District has accepted an invitation to take part in three days of "intensive talks" in Belfast next week aimed at finding a solution to the Drumcree impasse.
The talks will be chaired by industrial mediator Mr Frank Blair, head of the Scottish branch of the UK Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.
With only 38 days remaining until this year's Orange church parade, time is running out to find a solution. Next week's talks are therefore seen as a last-ditch attempt by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, to break the Drumcree deadlock.
The decision to attend the talks, which will also be attended by representatives of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, was taken at a specially convened meeting of the Portadown District on Tuesday night. Attendance at the special meeting was restricted to two officers from each of the Orange lodges that belong to the Portadown Orange District.
An Orange Order source told The Irish Times last night that Tuesday night's meeting was "frank and forthright".
"The district officers were told that we would not accept any compromise on the Drumcree parade. The bottom line is that this year's and future years' parades must go down the Garvaghy Road. Nothing else is acceptable. Drumcree is not negotiable. The district officers were left in no doubt whatsoever what is expected of them. The men of Portadown district have spent almost 11 months at Drumcree. They are not prepared to be sold out now."
The hardline approach follows recent statements from Garvaghy Road residents which inferred that no Orange parades would be allowed down the Garvaghy Road this year.
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams, in a statement issued yesterday, said "direct face-to-face dialogue between the Orange Order and the Garvaghy Residents' Coalition, based on equality, offers the best hope of a resolution" to the Drumcree problem.
Mr Adams went on to say "the plight of the residents of the Garvaghy Road is a stand-alone issue and cannot be traded off, as some media speculation has suggested, for an executive or other political development".