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Macedonian Army On 24-Hour Ceasefire After Ultimatum
TETOVO, Macedonia, March 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Macedonian army started a 24-hour ceasefire at midnight Wednesday (2300 GMT Tuesday) after the government gave Albanian separatists in the Tetovo region an ultimatum to surrender or withdraw by the end of Wednesday.
An announcement by the ministries of the interior and defense here said Tuesday that Macedonian forces would refrain from opening fire for 24 hours to give the "terrorists" time to reply to the ultimatum.
The army would "only reply in case of an attack by the other side," the announcement said.
When the ultimatum expires, "the security forces will pursue their attacks against the terrorist positions with all means at their disposal until they are wiped out, in the Tetovo region and along the northern border" of the country, it said.
"The aim of these operations will be to chase the terrorists from our country and install peace on the whole of Macedonian territory."
The army launched an offensive at 4 pm (1500 GMT) Tuesday against the Albanian separatists in the hills above the embattled town of Tetovo near the border with Kosovo.
The offensive won EU backing for a military response to end an uprising by ethnic Albanian "terrorists".
Plumes of smoke rose from around separatist positions and columns of earth were thrown up as the army opened an artillery barrage against Albanian gunmen, marking a new intensity in Macedonia's struggle to quell the uprising before it sucks the entire region into a new Balkans war.
Army cannon opened rapid fire and within half an hour a heavy pall of thick gray smoke hung across the entire hillside to the north and northwest of the town.
Several isolated houses on the edge of the northwestern town had been hit by shells, including one from which separatists had been firing on police positions.
The pounding lasted around 90 minutes before dying away to spattered bursts of machinegun fire.
Witnesses said groups of separatists could be seen coming from the hills only 300 or 400 meters (yards) from the town stadium where special police units were backed by army units.
The army had massed tanks and troops in Tetovo for an offensive to drive out the separatists after special police armed with mortars and machineguns struggled in vain for seven days to chase the separatists from the edge of the large town.
Speaking against the constant background of pounding shells, Arben Xhaferi, leader of the Democratic Party of Albania (DPA) said he was angry that his party, which forms part of the governing coalition, had not been consulted before the attack began.
"As you can hear, at present the situation is very, very dangerous with heavy artillery being used against the villages and villagers," he said in the center of Tetovo.
But he insisted he would not pull his party out of the coalition as yet.
"Right now we have a very, very deep need to be part of the government," he said.
The army opened up with its heavy weapons just hours after the European Union's foreign policy supremo Javier Solana gave Skopje the union's blessing to use "proportional" military force against the "terrorists."
"Let me say clearly it is a mistake to negotiate with terrorists. To negotiate with terrorists in this particular case is a mistake ... and we will not recommend that," Solana said after talks with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski.
The Macedonian leader swore the government "will not negotiate under the threat of terrorism and ethnically-motivated extremism which are claiming victims."
"Macedonia has enough power to settle the accounts with extremists by itself," he warned.
Several hours later the army, which had until now been confined to blasting separatist-held villages on the rugged border with Kosovo, started pounding the hills around Tetovo.
The separatists state they are fighting for the rights of Macedonia's large Albanian minority. But Skopje says it has declared itself open to reform and accuses the separatists of trying to carve up the country and annex Albanian areas to Kosovo, which is more than 90% Albanian.
The ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) warned earlier it was losing patience with the government.
"Due to the ignorant attitude of the Macedonian authorities and their naive and hypocritical ignoring of the Albanian demands we are losing patience," the separatists said in a statement.
As Macedonia launched the assault to root out the separatists, diplomatic efforts accelerated to form a political firewall around Macedonia's coalition government, which includes a key Albanian party.
Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo hailed the "self-restraint of the Macedonian authorities" in the face of attacks by Albanian separatists.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov arrived in Skopje from Belgrade, where he insisted the international community should set up a "firm obstacle to terrorist aggression" in Macedonia and southern Serbia if "a new explosion in the Balkans" was to be avoided.
World leaders from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to U.S. President George W. Bush have slammed the "extremists" for trying to tip the region into ethnic war, and international security and rights groups mobilized representatives to rush to Skopje.
The conflict has displaced thousands of people from the northwest, aid agencies said.
Paris announced that France and Britain are shortly to submit a resolution on the crisis in Macedonia to the U.N. Security Council, which is expected to pledge support for Macedonia.
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