Macedonia Struggling to Strike Deal for NATO Help

26/03/2001| IslamWeb

[Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski. Read photo caption below].


SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia's politicians are running out of time to thrash out a deal intended to persuade Albanian guerrillas to disarm if they want early agreement from NATO to send in troops, Western diplomats said Tuesday.
Five days after the start of talks to agree concessions to Macedonia's Albanian minority, designed to undercut support for a four-month rebellion that has widened the ethnic divide, the process remains deadlocked despite heavy foreign pressure.
Some European NATO allies are ready to start another Balkan operation and could announce an initial decision Wednesday -- but only if cross-party talks in Skopje can hammer out terms for averting civil war.
``Unfortunately the talks are going in two different directions,'' Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski told reporters.
Diplomats said the details of a workable amnesty are almost in place, but Albanian parties want the constitution rewritten in ways unpalatable to Macedonia's Orthodox Slav majority.
Politicians on both sides are being told that a NATO role depends on them finalizing terms of disarmament and the text of key clauses in the constitution. Even then troops would not be deployed immediately.
``We have to give some results by tonight or tomorrow, before a NATO meeting,'' a senior Albanian party official told Reuters.
FRACTIOUS COALITION
The main obstacle is the wording of the preamble to the tiny state's 10-year-old constitution.
The one-third Albanian minority want to be described as a founding ethnic group, not as one of several minorities in a country of ``the Macedonian people.''
Macedonians of Slav descent would view such a rewrite as denying them their own nation, after years of neighboring countries' denials that Macedonians were a true ethnic group.
Albanian parties in a fractious coalition government, formed in a bid to prevent war, also want an effective veto on virtually any decision by parliament or the president.
``We have no intention of giving in to their demands,'' said a senior Macedonian party official. ``They have to compromise.''
Party tensions were also strained after Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski quit the cross-party security body set up to oversee a future peace deal, saying it was too ready to accept unreasonable Albanian demands and block a crackdown on rebels.
A government source dismissed the resignation as political posturing and said Boskovski's move to arm potential police reservists, later reversed, had made it hard for him to stay.
PARTIAL DEAL ENOUGH
The incentive of NATO involvement may help the two sides haggle their way to a solution that would show Albanians their calls are being heard, diplomats say.
Political leaders are then expected to form proposals to address demands such as wider use of the Albanian language and more jobs for Albanians in the civil service and police.
They are unlikely to be finalized by next Monday's European Union deadline to show ``substantial progress.'' But EU sources say a basic deal and promises to keep talking may be enough.
The other main issue NATO wants resolved is the terms of an amnesty, which the rebels want to cover their commanders -- a prospect the government has so far refused to consider.
Both sides called cease-fires eight days ago but their shaky truce is punctured almost daily by exchanges of fire.
In The Hague, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana voiced cautious optimism about progress in efforts to halt the violence.
``We hope NATO will come up with some ideas in the next few days... By Monday we will have some positive developments,'' Solana told reporters Tuesday evening after a meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartsen.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, seen in this February 25, 2001 file photo in Skopje, said June 19 talks to avoid a civil war were going in 'two different directions.' Western diplomats also said Macedonian politicians were running out of time to persuade Albanian guerrillas to disarm if they want early agreement from NATO to send in troops. (Ognen Teofilovski/Reuters)
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