The Orange Order raised a number of issues including the release of paramilitary prisoners and a future border poll in an historic meeting with the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair two weeks after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
The papers show that on April 24, 1998 the Northern Ireland Office informed the then Secretary of State Mo Mowlam that the Orange Order was seeking a meeting with Mr Blair.
As a result he met five representatives of the Order at Downing Street on May 7, 1998.
"The Grand Lodge was a religious organisation, not a political one, but the NI Agreement was so important that the lodge thought they should take a view. There was a particular preoccupation with decommissioning. Where did things stand?" Grand Master Robert Salters asked Mr Blair.
Mr Blair said the Independent Commission would be setting out a clear timetable and the process should be completed in two years.
In response to a query from John McCrea, Mr Blair said that some form of cross-community voting in the assembly was necessary because, under a simple majority system, ‘nationalists felt it would be abused and the assembly would collapse’.
Watson asked about the proposed referendum on a united Ireland provided in the agreement. ‘People feared that in 30 years’ time the nationalists might be a majority and insist on using it’.
Mr Blair replied that the seven year interval between referendums was supposed to reassure people. The British Government had no plans to hold a referendum and ‘there was certainly no requirement to hold one every seven years’.
On prisoners, the Orange representative said that some would get out reasonably early but were ‘guilty of the most hideous crimes for which they have not repented’. In response, Mr Blair said that this was a most difficult issue but prisoner releases had always played a part in similar situations in the world.