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NATO Troops Ready To Oversee Macedonia
BRUSSELS, June 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - NATO, on Wednesday, ordered its military commanders to draw up an "urgent" plan for intervention that would back to back an eventual peace accord in Macedonia, as there was a breakdown in negotiations between the Slavs and Albanians in the Balkan state.
NATO said it would only interfere after a political accord between Macedonia and its Albanian community had been reached, news agencies reported.
Such an accord between Skopje's Slav and Albanian parties, is "an essential precondition" to any NATO intervention in the four-month-old conflict, the alliance announced Wednesday.
On the basis of a political agreement between the Slavs and Albanians, "the allies agreed to ask their military authorities... to develop an operation plan for council consideration on an urgent basis," said the statement.
The statement, issued at the conclusion of a meeting of NATO's permanent council, said the allies were considering a request by Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski for NATO assistance to oversee disarming the Albanian activists, with whom the government has been in a four-month standoff.
But it added, "The allies reaffirmed the urgent need for a successful outcome of the political dialogue between the different parties in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia."
Meanwhile, talks in Skopje aimed at uniting the fractious multi-ethnic government behind a
Western-backed peace plan, showed no signs of a breakthrough.
President Trajkovski said Wednesday that peace talks to end the Albanian revolution were blocked, blaming Albanian political parties for the deadlock.
"Unfortunately today, I have to say that the talks at this level are blocked, and that block came first and foremost because of the surprising change of the position of the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA) and the Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP)," the two Albanian parties in the national unity coalition, Trajkovski said.
He added that the two parties had changed their position "dramatically" since talks began and were insisting that the multi-ethnic Balkan state be made a federation, giving Albanians a greater voice, something the Macedonian Slav parties have categorically refused.
Trajkovski said the DPA and the PDP were instead pushing for the "creation of some kind of bi-national state," which the Slav-dominated government sees as a stepping-stone to carving up the country.
He said his country would not go down the road of "consensual democracy," which he said was in place in the troubled state of Bosnia, as it would "only lead to division and potential inter-ethnic clashes, and will block the adoption of political decisions."
In the other hand, Albanian leader Arben Xhaferi denied, later Wednesday, charges by Trajkovski of blocking peace talks, accusing the Macedonian leader instead of "creating a climate of paranoia."
Xhaferi, president of the DPA, denied Trajkovski's accusation that he was trying to carve up the country along ethnic lines, saying, "He is trying to create a very bad image of Albanians in the media, he is creating a climate of paranoia."
Xhaferi said that far from blocking talks, he was "ready to talk with anyone whose goal is to have a real agreement."
However, NATO has insisted the four parties in the emergency government of national unity - two Macedonian Slav parties and two Albanian ones - reach a political consensus on reforms and a plan for decommissioning activist weapons before it intervenes.
In Paris, a security official said that up to 3,000 troops could be sent into Macedonia within weeks to secure the border with neighboring Kosovo and disarm the Albanian activists.
The press reports in Italy, Britain and Spain have said that European powers are preparing a large peacekeeping force to go into Macedonia with the agreement of both sides in the conflict.
The peacekeepers would not be from the 44,000-strong NATO-led force already in Kosovo but would be "from outside the theatre" and be essentially drawn from European countries, the well-placed source said.
The deployment would begin in the first weeks of July and would only last a limited period of time, the official said.
NATO troops would be deployed along the mountainous area of northern Macedonia between the towns of Kumanovo and Tetovo, which has been the scene of fighting between government forces and Albanian fighters since February, he said.
But the force would not be sent until an agreement was reached with the activists for them to lay down their arms, the official warned.
"The force is not going there to fight," he added.
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