Macedonia President Criticizes West Over Aid, Albanians
SKOPJE, Dec. 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski lashed out at Western leaders in an interview Saturday for giving in to what he called "propaganda" from the country's Albanian minority.
Trajkovski took them to task for threatening to postpone a meeting of aid donors to help shore up a fragile peace accord over delays in a bill to give Albanians greater political clout.
Parliament on Friday failed to adopt the devolution bill, whose passage was agreed as part of a Western-backed peace accord that ended several months of an Albanian uprising in August, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported
"The international community has fallen into the trap of the Albanian lobby's propaganda, which claims there is a human rights struggle going on in Macedonia," he told the
Nova Makedonija daily.
He called on Western leaders to "honor their obligations and promises" and go ahead with the donors' conference on December 20 in Brussels.
European officials had warned the meeting would be postponed until next year if the bill, which has been repeatedly delayed, was not passed by Friday.
Some Macedonian MPs said the bill would give local councils in areas with a majority Albanian population too much power and effectively carve up the small Balkan republic along ethnic lines.
A compromise with Albanian MPs could not be reached and the parliamentary session was called off.
"It is absurd to believe we will allow a decentralization which would let municipalities create a state within the state," Trajkovski told the paper.
Albanians, may of whom are Muslim, have been seeking greater control over their affairs in areas where they are the majority as part of the deal which ended their uprising.
A Macedonian army spokesman warned Friday that the still fragile peace was "in danger."
