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Macedonians Balk at Last Minute Deal with Albanians
OHRID, Macedonia, Aug 6 (News Agencies) - Peace talks in Macedonia hit an eleventh-hour obstacle on Monday when a surprise extra demand was put on the table but Western diplomats insisted negotiations aimed at ending a six-month conflict in this former Yugoslav republic had not collapsed.
"This is a serious setback," U.S. envoy James Pardew told Aagence France-Presse (AFP), as talks broke to give Macedonian political leaders time to reconsider their positions.
"The Macedonians submitted new demands. This is the deal-breaker," a Western diplomat said.
Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski issued a statement saying the negotiations would resume Tuesday.
The leaders of the four main Macedonian Slav and ethnic Muslim Albanian parties had gone back to the negotiating table for a ninth day of talks on Monday amid hopes that they were on the brink of a peace accord which would help avert civil war in the Balkan country.
A Western official said the new demands by the Macedonian side "were a step backwards, but not a breakdown" in the talks.
Both he and Macedonian sources insisted the talks had not been "suspended," but were merely "taking a break".
The stumbling block was apparently a demand from the Macedonian Slav parties for guarantees that a peace plan would be implemented along with the disarmament of the ethnic Albanian combatants of the National Liberation Army (NLA), who have been operating in the country for more than six months.
In Skopje, an NLA commander, Captain Shpati, told AFP the combatants would lay down their weapons but that they would do so gradually, in steps that would mirror progress in implementing the peace deal.
Earlier Monday, European Union envoy Francois Leotard had expressed hope that a final peace accord would be struck "perhaps Monday, or in any case Tuesday."
Shortly after he spoke, however, the Macedonian defence ministry said minor clashes had erupted overnight in ethnic Albanian activist strongholds in an ominous sign the combatants might be at odds with results achieved so far in the negotiations.
The combatants, who launched an insurgency in February in what they say is a fight for minority rights, have not been allowed at the negotiating table. Any peace accord would be unlikely to work if they did not agree with its terms.
Before Monday's last-minute drama, it had looked as if the final obstacle to a peace deal -- a reform of local police forces in areas with significant ethnic Albanian populations -- had been overcome Sunday.
The other key sticking point in the talks, the status of the Albanian language, was resolved last week, but is conditional on an overall accord being signed.
In Skopje, NATO spokesman Major Barry Johnson said the alliance was ready to send some
3,500 soldiers to Macedonia to oversee the disarmament of NLA combatants if a final peace accord was reached.
The first NATO soldiers could be deployed within 48 hours after the peace accord was reached and could start overseeing a activist disarmament two weeks later, Johnson, said.
While international mediators had been upbeat about the chances of success, Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians have been markedly silent about progress.
A fragile July 5 ceasefire has been regularly marred by violence, and as the talks dragged on last week, the Skopje government also started to talk tough, saying it was ready to use military force to drive out combatants from areas they have occupied.
The deal would also have to go to parliament, where quick passage of what has been agreed is not assured. Parliament speaker Stojan Andov last week said combatants should withdraw from their positions before it passes.
The international community has weighed in to help secure peace in Macedonia, fearing another Balkans war will erupt as it did in Bosnia and the Serbian province of Kosovo in the 1990s.
Albanians form up to one third of the country's population of two million, living mainly in the north near the border with Kosovo and in the west near Albania.
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