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Macedonian Peace Talks Stumble, Fighting Continues
SKOPJE, July 18 (News Agencies) - In efforts to overcome setbacks in negotiations on an EU-U.S. plan intended to end six months of conflict, Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders were due to meet with President Boris Trajkovski on Wednesday, officials said.
The meeting comes amid television reports of gunfire taking place overnight in the northwest town of Tetovo, despite a two-week ceasefire between ethnic Albanian armed activists and government troops.
Since the ceasefire was announced, Macedonia's Slav and ethnic Muslim Albanian parties have been locked in intense negotiations with EU and U.S. envoys on changes to the constitution intended to address the large Albanian minority's complaints of discrimination.
But, the talks suffered a setback on Tuesday when the Slav parties rejected two of the Albanians' key demands - that Albanian be made one of Macedonia's official languages and that a local police force be set up independent of the Interior Ministry (IM).
In a statement released Wednesday, U.S. and EU envoys said the draft political settlement on the table provides for retaining Macedonian as the "primary official language" throughout the country, and IM central control over the police.
Albanian would become an official language "in some areas and in restricted circumstances," the statement said.
"This is a difficult decision for the leaders of Macedonia, but it is up to them to decide the future of the country," said envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew.
The Albanians are calling for the head of the local police to be elected in an internationally supervised ballot; that the force be made up equally of Slavs and Albanians; and that it be financed and trained by the international community.
"A local police force, free from interior ministry control would only contribute to increased trafficking in weapons, drugs and prostitutes," Skopje television said on Wednesday.
Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski made the same point on Tuesday night in statements to EU and U.S. envoys to Macedonia. He also rejected the demand that Albanian become an official language on the grounds that it would be "contrary to the unity of the state".
Skopje says accepting that proposal would open the door to the division of Macedonia into Slav and Albanian states.
Political leaders, foreign envoys and legal experts have been locked in marathon talks since June 9, in an attempt to end the six-month conflict between government troops and Albanian activists of the National Liberation Army (NLA) - who say they want more rights for the country's Muslim minority.
Macedonian television said armed activists fired shots near a military base in the mainly Albanian town of Tetevo overnight on Tuesday and that troops did not return the fire.
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry said armed activists were continuing to regroup in the northeast regions of Kumanovo and Lipkovo, where they have controlled several villages since May.
NATO Secretary General George Robertson and European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana are due to visit Macedonia on Thursday.
Foreign ministers from the five-nation "Contact Group" on the former Yugoslavia have also discussed the conflict in Rome - ahead of this week's G8 summit, diplomatic sources said.
Russia was expected to press the other members of the Contact Group - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States - to take tougher stances with the Albanians, whose politicians have close links to the rights movement that has pushed the republic to the brink of civil war.
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