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Macedonia Says Peace Talks To Resume Friday
SKOPJE, July 26 (News Agencies) - Macedonia stepped back from the brink of civil war Thursday as Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski told reporters that peace talks with Albanian leaders would resume Friday.
International peace envoys Thursday had been pushing the government to resume the peace talks as Albanian activists withdrew from northwestern towns.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in Skopje the peace process was back on track, as was a ceasefire brokered on July 5th, which had disintegrated into intense fighting in the flashpoint northwestern town of Tetovo, and anti-western riots in Skopje earlier this week.
"The political process is back on track, the ceasefire is back on track, both are of tremendous importance," Solana told a news conference.
Earlier Thursday, after talks with a trio of international peace envoys, Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski announced at a joint news conference that the peace negotiations would resume in Tetovo.
Francois Leotard, the EU's permanent envoy to the Balkan country, said the talks would resume before the weekend.
An Albanian activist leader, Commander Iliri, confirmed that the activists' withdrawal from towns they have controlled since the July 5th ceasefire was almost complete.
Trajkovski told the news conference that peace talks would be held in Tetovo because securing peace in this mainly Muslim Albanian town, 25 miles from the capital Skopje, was central to securing peace throughout the country.
Within hours of the news conference, Macedonian police in Tetovo, according to police sources who did not elaborate on the circumstances, killed a Muslim Albanian as he was "resisting arrest".
The Western peace mission, which also involved NATO Secretary General George Robertson and chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mircea Geoana, was arranged hastily after the former Yugoslav republic appeared to be headed for an all-out war Wednesday.
Intense fighting earlier this week in Tetovo between government forces and activists left two dead and around 30 injured and anti-Western, anti-Albanian riots hit Skopje late Tuesday.
The activists' political leader, Ali Ahmeti, signed an accord Wednesday under which all activist checkpoints on the Tetovo road were to be dismantled, while all paramilitary forces were to pull back 500 yards from the last house in all villages controlled by the activists since July 5th.
The withdrawal was a condition of the Macedonian government for it to continue respecting the ceasefire and to refrain from further violence.
OSCE monitoring teams were charged with observing the retreat.
Earlier Thursday, Macedonian authorities said they were issuing international arrest warrants against 11 Albanian activist leaders, including political representative Ahmeti himself.
The interior ministry said there was enough "evidence gathered between 1998 and 2000, proving that their terrorist activities were aimed at federalizing and tearing apart the territory of Macedonia, creating a greater Kosovo," referring to the neighboring U.N.-administrated Yugoslav province.
The peace talks are aimed at ending an Albanian uprising that started in February, fuelling Western fears of a new Balkans war after those in Bosnia and the Serbian province of Kosovo. Talks floundered last week mainly due to disagreements concerning the status of the Albanian language in the mainly Slav country.
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