Orangemen in Northern Ireland revealed new plans tonight to pressurize parades chiefs into ending Northern Ireland's most bitter marching dispute.

Representatives from the loyal order in Portadown, where the 10-year-old Drumcree row remains unresolved, insisted they were ready to hold face to face talks with nationalist residents opposed to their campaign.

They accused the Parades Commission of doing nothing to advance their proposals to meet under an independent chairman in a bid to finally settle the row.

Even though the Orange Order has snubbed the authority`s determinations, a delegation from Portadown will hand in a letter to chairman Roger Poole at its Belfast headquarters tomorrow.

They will be backed by the Democratic Unionist MP for Portadown, David Simpson, and Ulster Unionist deputy leader Danny Kennedy.

Darryl Hewitt, the Order`s Portadown District Master, said: "We are telling Roger Poole to deliver what he told us he could deliver. We informed him on October 7, 2006 that Portadown District was ready, willing and able to enter a mediation process, under an independent chairperson, with the Garvaghy Road residents."

The row over Orangemen`s demands to march on the contested, overwhelmingly nationalist, route has in past years plunged Northern Ireland into violence.

Ever since 1998 the Order has been banned from returning along the staunchly Catholic Garvaghy Road from an annual July service at Drumcree Church.

But with unionists and republicans sharing power under Northern Ireland`s new peacetime political settlement, fresh efforts are being made to finally break the deadlock.

And despite rumors that Portadown Orangemen were at odds with the rest of the Order, a statement from its Grand Lodge of Ireland offered full support.

It said: "The opposition to the Drumcree Parade is a legacy of the Troubles and we are anxious to see the issue resolved. Portadown District have been working quietly behind the scenes in a sustained and constructive way."

"During the past year they have offered to engage with Garvaghy Road residents through the Parades Commission and on the Parades Commission`s terms. We do not understand why the parade cannot now go ahead."

But the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition (GRRC) expressed major doubts over the Orangemen`s willingness to talk, claiming Mr Hewitt has still to reply to an earlier correspondence.

The residents said in a statement: "If it is to be expected that GRRC should enter a process of dialogue/mediation in the knowledge that one possible outcome of such a process could be the completion of an Orange march to Drumcree and returning via Garvaghy Road; it is only fair, equitable and just, that Portadown District LOL No.1 should also be expected to enter the same process of dialogue/mediation in the knowledge that an equally possible outcome of any such process could well be no march."

"However, while the Portadown District policy of non-negotiation on parades, routes, and venues remains in place, then it becomes clear that unconditional dialogue remains as far away as it was 12 years ago."

"The present attempts to misrepresent the GRRC position through a process of Orange spin and media manipulation are only designed to disguise the inability of the Orange Order in Portadown to give a straightforward and honest answer to the letter which they received from the GRRC three months ago."

Sinn Fein Upper Bann MLA John O`Dowd called on Portadown Orangemen to enter unconditional dialogue with nationalists.

He said: "Year on year we are told by the Orange of imminent talks; we are told that if only A, B or C would do as the Orangemen tell them then talks would materialize. They never outline what context and substance those talks would take and year on year the promised talks by the Orange do not materialize."

"This year it is the Parades Commission`s fault, and I do not doubt the Commission led the Orange up the garden path. However, that is irrelevant and a diversion. The fact is as long as the Orange Order refuses to enter into unconditional talks without predetermined outcomes with their nationalist neighbours the garden path will be the only place they will be walking."