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NATO Commander Wins Concessions as First Contact With Albanian Activists Made
SKOPJE, Aug 20 (News Agencies) - As a NATO team of mainly British soldiers made their first official contact with Albanian activists, NATO commander - U.S. general Joseph Ralston - flew into Macedonia Monday, where the government offered to re-deploy its forces away from conflict areas in order to allow NATO troops to collect Albanian activists' weapons, journalists here reported.
During a visit spanning only a few hours, NATO's supreme commander met alliance officers charged with carrying out the sensitive disarmament mission seen as essential to ending a seven-month Albanian uprising and the threat of civil war in the Balkan country.
He also met Macedonia's President Boris Trajkovsi and other ministers from the Skopje government.
"I am gathering facts...Then it will be up to the nations of NATO to decide what to do from here," Ralston told reporters.
He was referring to Tuesday's crucial meeting of NATO ambassadors, which must decide whether to give the go-ahead to a fully-fledged NATO force to collect the weapons.
Following the signature last week of a peace accord between Macedonian and Muslim Albanian political parties NATO sent a vanguard force of 520 troops to prepare the ground for full NATO deployment in "Operation Essential Harvest."
NATO says a durable ceasefire must be in place before the full 3,500-strong British-led force can be deployed.
Ralston's trip went ahead despite weekend clashes in the troubled northwestern region around the flashpoint town of Tetovo, though the area was reported calm Monday.
The Macedonian government said on Monday it would withdraw its forces from key positions to help the ceasefire.
"Macedonian security forces are ready as of today to change their position ... in order to create the necessary conditions to launch Operation Essential Harvest to disarm the Albanian terrorists," the defense ministry said in a statement.
As a confidence-building measure, helicopters and planes will be barred from flying over frontline areas, it added.
But the defense ministry warned that troops, fighter planes and attack helicopters would be dispatched to respond to an attack or a ceasefire violation.
The redeployment offer from Skopje followed a renewed pledge from the National Liberation Army (NLA) on Sunday to hand over their weapons to the NATO task force.
Ali Ahmeti, political leader of the NLA told reporters that "as far as the NLA is concerned, there will be no problem. All of the NLA's combatants will hand over their arms."
The NLA has been fighting government forces to press for expanded rights for Macedonia's large Muslim Albanian minority, which lives mostly in the northwest of the Balkans country.
While NATO officials have remained tight-lipped about the advance party's activities, they did confirm on Monday that the British commander of the task force, Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, had met Ahmeti on Friday.
British liaison troops also began reconnaissance missions, touring Nikustak, a NLA-held village in the northern Kumanovo region where fighters there said they were prepared to cooperate, according to journalists who accompanied the troops.
In Brussels meanwhile, an official said NATO ambassadors are not expected to launch the full deployment of Operation Essential Harvest at their meeting on Tuesday.
NATO officials have declined to say how many weapons will be taken out of Macedonia but western sources estimate that number to be at 2,500.
Macedonian sources say however that at least 6,000 light arms are in the hands of the NLA and many more heavy weapons.
In a sign of hostility on the part of some members of Macedonia's population, however, a demonstration took place outside the parliament building, where Ralston was meeting Macedonian leaders.
"We do not want the NATO harvest," one banner said.
Meanwhile, in direct application of NATO's operation, a team of mainly British soldiers in Macedonia made their first official contact on Monday with the NLA.
The team, led by Captain Gareth Hicks from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, is part of a vanguard of NATO troops trying to establish whether a ceasefire in northwest Macedonia will hold and whether the NLA will give up their arms.
Hicks met with a NLA leader known as "Commander Adashi" in the village of Umin Dol in northern Macedonia.
Adashi told Hicks: "I believe there will be no problem from our side. We will cooperate; we will guarantee your security on our side. But we can't say anything about the other side."
When asked whether his men understood that NATO would begin collecting weapons once a full agreement had been signed, Adashi said: "We will go in accordance with what the agreement says."
"No, we don't mind the agreement, because it was signed by Ali Ahmeti," he said in reference to the man the NLA consider their political leader, adding that: "We have very disciplined soldiers who respect their military command."
Another NLA representative, Xhavit Hasani, in charge of "information and morals" said his men had not harmed any civilians and that no amnesty would be needed for them.
Macedonian authorities had agreed to offer an amnesty to NLA members who surrendered their weapons under the agreement signed between their political leaders on August 13th.
"The question is, will we make an amnesty for them? It must be clear that we fought for our rights," Hasani said in reference to the uprising over increased minority rights that began in February.
Adashi also told Hicks that while there had been little fighting, Macedonian troops had fired sniper rifles and grenades a few times on the road linking Umin Dol to the nearby village of Nikustak.
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