David Trimble: "We want a real peace"

As members of the Orange Order in Portadown were preparing to stage two separate rallies in protest at the bar on their traditional marching route, Mr Trimble said the Parades Commission which imposed it could not resolve the stand-off.

The commission ordered the Protestant marchers to keep away from the area in July after objections from Catholics and fears of sectarian clashes.

Mr Trimble, also the Ulster Unionist leader, told Radio 4's Today programme that the problem needed to be solved but added: "I cannot see it being solved within the structures of the Parades Commission."

The Parades Commission was still a "major obstacle", he said.

David Trimble: Commission is "recipe for trouble"

Mr Trimble, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, said: "What we need is to move away from this sort of confrontational approach, the approach which says this is our territory and we won't allow anybody else to walk along it.

"My own view is that we can't solve it while we have the present legal structure.

"I said at the time when the legislation was passed last year that it was a recipe for trouble and so it has proved. I think the government must look at this again."

Mr Trimble also again called on paramilitary organisations to begin disarming and disbanding to give Northern Ireland a secure peace in 1999.

"We have a peace at the moment - it is an armed peace punctuated by beatings and occasional incidents but we want a real peace," he said.