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British Troops to Fly to Macedonia
SKOPJE, Aug 16 (News Agencies) - A first contingent of British troops will fly Friday to Macedonia at the vanguard of a NATO mission to the troubled Balkans nation, the commander heading the group, Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, said.
Some 400 elite British airborne troops are to begin arriving Friday at Skopje's Petrovec airport to set up the command structures for the multinational force, White-Spunner announced.
"We are going to see if the conditions are right so we can advise NATO whether to deploy this force to run the weapon collections operation," he said in Colchester, England.
"We are looking for a readiness on the parties to abide by the agreement [of the ceasefire]. In particular we are looking for a commitment on behalf of all the ethnic Albanian armed groups to abide by the agreement," he added.
NATO fears being dragged into a Balkan quagmire that could see thousands of its troops tied up for years to come, policing a murderous conflict as they have been in Kosovo since 1999 and Bosnia since 1995.
The fighting in Macedonia has never been as intense as in previous Balkan wars, and both moderate leaders and international mediators believe that with quick action, the trouble can be nipped in the bud.
But distrust between the majority Macedonian population and their Albanian neighbors runs deep, and with the situation on the ground still unpredictable, Operation Essential Harvest could still be faced with renewed fighting.
Both the Macedonian government and the leaders of the National Liberation Army (NLA) have lent their support to a Western-backed global peace plan signed by political leaders Monday.
But one possible threat to the peace comes from a little known Albanian group calling itself the Albanian National Army (ANA), which has rejected the peace accord and vowed to fight on to carve out a "Greater Albania" in the Balkans.
Most observers believe that the group is too small to pose a military threat in itself, but it is not yet clear how many members of the NLA might be tempted by its hardline language into continuing their struggle.
The group has claimed responsibility - unconvincingly - for some of the most successful attacks, and has branded Albanian politicians who back the peace deal traitors and threatened NATO-led troops.
On Thursday it said that NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping force should send home troops from Slav nations, such as the joint Polish Ukrainian brigade based on the border, which has had some notable successes in stopping smugglers.
On the Macedonian side, Western diplomats warned that a so-called "war party" of hardline nationalists within the ruling coalition was opposed to the peace deal, which it grudgingly signed under Western-pressure.
They fear that allies of hawkish Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski and Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski could seek to provoke incidents to legitimize a military offensive against NLA-held territory.
NATO's protection against being dragged into any fresh clashes is its limited mission and mandate.
The lightly armed force will have the right to defend itself, but its leaders insist its duties will go no further that securing weapons collection points and taking away NLA-held arms.
Once a two-week deployment is complete, the mission is limited to 30 more days.
Albanian leaders and many Macedonians believe, however, that they will have to remain longer, and European diplomats admit that there is likely to be some flexibility over the deadline.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that planners were hoping to collect around 2,500 of the infantry weapons carried by the NLA, but many experts regard the plan as absurdly over-optimistic.
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