[ALBSA-Info] Greece sees foreign peacekeepers in Macedonia

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Greece sees foreign peacekeepers in Macedonia
  
ATHENS, June 13 (Reuters) - Greece said on Wednesday the deployment of an 
international peacekeeping force in neighbouring Macedonia was needed to help 
end a five-month conflict government troops and armed ethnic Albanians. 

"A presence of a peacekeeping force sooner or later...will be necessary," 
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou told Greek radio. 

"We have an immediate interest. There are many Greek companies that have 
invested substantial funds in this country," he told Flash radio. 

Greece has been Macedonia's largest foreign investor and third-biggest 
trading partner, with some $300 million direct investment in 1999. 

But Papandreou said he did not favour imposing an outside solution on the 
conflict without the consent of the Macedonian government. 

The ethnic Albanian insurgents say they are fighting to end discrimination 
against them by majority Slavs. Ethnic Albanians account for about a third of 
the country's population. 

"A peacekeeping mission which has...the approval of the government in Skopje 
is something the Greek government would look at positively... I don't think 
it would reject it," Papandreou said. 

NATO leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, were to meet in 
Belgium later on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in the small Balkan state as 
a shaky ceasefire between rebels and state troops on Tuesday was extended to 
Wednesday.