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EU Set to Ban Macedonian Albanian "Extremists"
BRUSSELS, July 16 (News Agencies)
- European Union foreign ministers approved in principle EU-wide visa restrictions on ethnic Albanians on Monday. The restriction is linked to the five-month-old movement calling for more rights for Macedonia's Muslim minority.
The ban - a new attempt at forcing the activists to give up their struggle - is to go into effect if and when Javier Solana, the European Union's Foreign Policy High Representative, decides the time is right to do so.
"We're in a process of negotiations (in Skopje) right now," Solana told reporters. "We want the people who have to know, to know that we've taken a decision that will be applicable when we think it should be."
Monday's decision in Brussels was taken as talks between Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders in Skopje stalled, mainly over demands that Albanian be made one of Macedonia's official languages.
Political leaders were due to meet later with U.S. and EU envoys James Pardew and Francois Leotard.
The European Union, in collaboration with NATO and the United States, has been leading intensive efforts to resolve the Macedonia crisis and keep it from exploding into a new inter-ethnic Balkan bloodbath.
Separately, NATO Secretary General George Robertson said in a statement Monday, that the alliance was "watching with intense interest and concern" the ongoing political dialogue in Skopje.
"It is clear that the process of ending the crisis is now at a crossroads.... At such a sensitive stage, quick progress is vital," Lord Robertson said.
He added that through the duration of the talks, it was "of the utmost importance" that both sides respect their mutual ceasefire commitments and "act with utmost discipline and restraint."
The complete EU visa ban list was not made public at the end of Monday's Council of Ministers' meeting, chaired by Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel - whose country took over the EU presidency on July 1.
But at a preparatory meeting last week, ambassadors of the 15 EU member states approved a list that contained a total of 38 names, European sources said.
Most of the names belong to commanders and political leaders of the National Liberation Army (NLA), which has been locked in armed conflict with the Macedonian army since February.
It also identifies a few members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the civil defense outfit created in U.N.-administered NATO from members of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Some 100 ethnic Albanians staged a boisterous demonstration earlier Monday outside the EU Council of Ministers' headquarters in support of ethnic Albanian insurgents in Macedonia.
Waving
red-and-black Albanian flags, the protesters shouted "UCK, UCK" - the
Albanian acronym of the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) - as well as
"Liberty, equality" and "We are not terrorists."
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