The North's First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, has for the first time indicated he is prepared to meet the Garvaghy Road residents in Portadown.
Observers believe such a move on the part of Mr Trimble could have considerable significance for the peace process and would have the effect of lowering tension across the board. Asked at a news conference in the US capital yesterday if a meeting could take place, he said: "That is something that is a possibility but I would want to know that it would result in a positive outcome."
He wanted to see the dispute over the Orange march along the Garvaghy Road resolved "as quickly as possible". The elements of a resolution were there already but there were elements on both sides who did not want a resolution.
He said he had "taken a chance" last summer by sending a representative to meet the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, who had even offered to appear at a public meeting with Garvaghy residents, but this was turned down on safety grounds.
Responding to a statement by Mr Gerry Adams that he could not "deliver" decommissioning by the republican movement, Mr Trimble asked: "Does Gerry have any influence in this organisation of which he purports to be a leader?"
Everyone else had accepted the need for change and the republican movement had to do likewise. The problem was entirely in that organisation's head. "I can't make them change."
Drawing attention to the even balance between pro- and anti-agreement unionists in the Stormont Assembly, Mr Trimble indicated that if there were any more defections to the anti-agreement camp, the pact would be doomed.
"If we had any further loss of confidence, then clearly the agreement couldn't be sustained, because this is an inclusive arrangement that has to include the majority of the representatives of nationalism and a majority of the representatives of unionism and, if we were to lose further support on this, then the agreement would collapse."
Explaining the basis of the agreement to an American audience, Mr Trimble spoke, in unusually conciliatory terms for a unionist leader, about the history of Northern Ireland. He said there had been a problem in Northern Ireland in the half-century after 1921 because one party, his own, had won all the elections and that was "fine for us, but not so fine for other people".
Outlining progress in implementing various aspects of the agreement, he said: "There is one front on which there has been virtually no progress at all and that's this issue about dealing with paramilitary structures and weapons."
In addition to the Omagh bomb and the killing of Rosemary Nelson in his own constituency this week, which most people were attributing to a small loyalist organisation, the mainstream paramilitaries were also engaged in violence. At this point Mr Trimble displayed a photograph of a person who lost a leg in a paramilitary mutilation attack.
The recent lull in such assaults had ended, now they were "picking up again". This was not what people voted for in the agreement.
He said paramilitaries could even carry out decommissioning themselves: "Gen de Chastelain's commission has got ways of verifying this." The UUP had confidence in the general and the other members of the commission.
Joe Carroll adds: President Clinton had separate meetings yesterday evening with Mr Seam us Mallon, Mr David Trimble and Mr Gerry Adams. Presidential adviser Mr Jim Steinberg said later they were "very constructive meetings in each case". They were an opportunity for the President to explore where each of the parties stood on the problems which needed to be overcome.
Mr Adams said he "stressed the Rosemary Nelson killing and the need for an independent external inquiry'. He had also spoken to the President about the reports of riots at Drumcree last night.
"We want to see critical matters defused," he said. He denied that any "arm-twisting" had taken place during his meeting and described the President as "balanced and even-handed". "I never felt pressurised," he said.