[ALBSA-Info] FYROM's Xhaferi calls for NATO help

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

FYROM's Xhaferi calls for NATO help

The political leader of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's ethnic 
Albanians, Arben Xhaferi, said yesterday that the country's government had 
armed Slav-Macedonian citizens to attack Albanians and he called for a strong 
NATO presence to prevent civil war.

In an interview with Greece's Athens News Agency, Arben Xhaferi also denied 
rumors that ethnic Albanians were planning an armed insurgency in Greece, 
saying that such demands were made by "extremists with unacceptable claims." 

"We have to deal with this problem in democratic ways," he said. Xhaferi, 
whose party is a member of the government of national unity, spoke of a 
possible solution to the Albanian insurgency in FYROM, where ethnic Albanians 
comprise about a third of the population. 

"This kind of problem can be solved in two ways, either through territorial 
segregation, by providing a regime of autonomy or a federation - cantons or 
something similar - or by a mechanism that protects all the other 
communities," Xhaferi said. "We are in favor of the second way. We do not 
want a territorial solution, but a kind of human mechanism that will protect 
the interests of the Albanians in society, who are now marginalized to a 
great degree."

He spoke of the need for NATO's intervention. "If you consider that some of 
the security forces - mainly the police - want to escalate the tension in the 
country, when you consider that they have already given 16,000 weapons to 
Macedonian citizens, the members of one party, to create 'political columns,' 
it is clear that we need more NATO forces to avoid a civil war, which is a 
real threat," he said.