Moves towards loyalist feud mediation

Moves are underway to start mediation in the Belfast loyalist paramilitary feud which has claimed three lives, but as yet there is no truce.

Sources close to the Ulster Volunteer Force and rival Ulster Defence Association leaderships in west Belfast have told the BBC said there has been no formal negotiation aimed at solving the dispute between them.

But a leading loyalist politician and close associate of the UDA/ Ulster Freedom Fighters, John White, has said he is hopeful that moves towards starting talks between the loyalist partamilitaries could be successful.

Archbishop Eames: Muted as possible mediator

The BBC has also learned that Church of Ireland Primate and Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames is now being talked about as a possible mediator in the feud.

Archbishop Eames is known to have had an important role in helping to persuade the Combined Loyalist Military Command, which embraced the two loyalist groups, to call its ceasefire in 1994.

Even if a truce is not agreed, many people hope a space can be created in which something could be worked out.

But sources have said there is still a lot of anger in both camps, following the murders of three men, and that there are individuals opposed to talking.

John White: Hope that meetings will lead to mediation

Speaking on Sunday, Mr White, chairman of the Ulster Democratic Party which has close links with the UDA/UFF, said that he hoped the feud could be resolved before any more lives were lost.

"I would hope that there would be a permanent truce in the days that lie ahead," he said.

"A lot of hard work has gone on behind the scenes and there are a lot of people within both organisations and at various stratas within those organisations who want to see this come to an end.

"I am hopeful that the meetings that are going on officially and unofficially will provide a basis to open up discussions between the main protagonists.

"But unfortunately I can't say that there is any evidence to indicate that there is any truce at this moment in time."

Tense atmosphere

There has been a tense atmosphere and a high security presence on the Shankill Road in west Belfast, following the murders and funerals of three men.

Massive funerals did not lower tensions on Shankill

Jackie Coulter, a close associate of the UDA/Ulster Freedom Fighters and another man Bobby Mahood, were shot dead as they sat in a jeep outside a bookmakers on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast on Monday afternoon.

The murder of Sam Rocket, 22, who had close links with the UVF, at his girlfriend's house on the Oldpark Road on Wednesday night is believed to have been in reprisal for their double murder.

The funerals of Jackie Coulter on Friday and Sam Rocket on Saturday were accompanied by paramilitary trappings of the organisations they were associated with, and their corteges were followed by hundreds of mourners as they made their way through the Shankill area.

A number of men are being questioned by police about Sam Rocket's murder.

The army, brought onto the streets of Belfast to prevent bloodshed for the first time in two years after the murders on Monday, have been keeping the Shankill area under close surveillance.

Families leave their homes

Tension raised by the feud has forced more than 40 families to leave their homes on the Shankill Road. They started applying to be rehoused after the feud flared up when shots were fired into the Rex bar on the Shankill Road during a UDA-linked festival last weekend.

David Ervine PUP: Concerned UFF and LVF are "uniting" against UVF

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed his decision to re-arrest convicted UFF leader Johnny Adair, revoking his licence for early release under the Good Friday Agreement on Tuesday night, had helped to calm tensions in the Shankill area.

But David Ervine of the Progressive Unionist Party said he was concerned because he believed the UDA and LVF were uniting against the UVF, despite the fact that the UDA/UFF says it supports the Good Friday Agreement peace accord, while the LVF opposes it.

He said there was an urgent need for talks between the rival organisations to end the feud which he believed was rooted both in local conflicts between "cardboard cut-out characters" and in a political power-struggle between the loyalist organisations.