[LiriaKombtare-Info] [AMCC-News] Macedonians, ethnic Albanians clear way for peace accord; Skopje raid casts shadow over [peace] talks

[Mentor Cana]

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1. Skopje raid casts shadow over [peace] talks (7 August, 2001)

      US envoy James Pardew told the BBC he was very disappointed by
      the Macedonian demands.
      "They need to think seriously about what they did," he said.

2. Macedonians, ethnic Albanians clear way for peace accord (6 August, 2001)

      Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders cleared the way
      for a peace accord in Macedonia, resolving the main remaining
      sticking point in attempts to avert a new Balkan war.

##### (1) #####

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1476000/1476940.stm
Tuesday, 7 August, 2001, 09:21 GMT 10:21 UK

Skopje raid casts shadow over talks

Bloodshed has continued despite peace talks Five ethnic Albanians rebels
have been killed in a police raid in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, the
country's interior minister reported on Tuesday.

The dawn operation - the first of its kind in the capital - came hours
after a tentative peace deal with the ethnic Albanians was put on hold when
the Macedonian Government added extra demands at the last minute.

The deal had been reached after days of hard bargaining at talks near the
resort of Lake Ohrid. The most divisive issues - the status of the Albanian
language and policing - had been resolved, but the Macedonian Government
then demanded a timetable for rebel disarmament.

As international attempts to breathe life back into the peace talks
continued in Ohrid, news of the police raid in Skopje was given by Interior
Minister Ljube Boskovski.

He told the French news agency AFP that the raid took place in the suburb
of Bergino at 0500 (0300GMT) on Tuesday. The suburb is populated mainly by
ethnic Albanians.

He said a rebel commander known as "Teli" was among those killed.

If confirmed, the deaths will be the first in the capital since the
conflict began in February.

Most of the violence has been confined to northern towns and villages,
where the rebels have their strongholds, although the rebels have held some
territory outside Skopje.

The government demand for a timetable for rebel disarmanent came from Prime
Minister Ljubco Georgievski, who said the deal was off unless the extra
condition was met.

The disarmament is scheduled to be supervised by Nato, and the organisation
says it cannot give an exact timetable for disarmament.

A force of 3,500 Nato troops is ready to be deployed in the country when a
peace deal has been finalised.

US envoy James Pardew told the BBC he was very disappointed by the
Macedonian demands.

"They need to think seriously about what they did," he said.

He added that he hoped that no one was trying to undermine the whole
process, saying that the deadlock could be partly due to "signing jitters".

Neither the rebels nor the international community could accept the
government demands for a ceasefire timetable, he said, because they were an
attempt to link a political deal to a military one, for which international
mediators had no mandate.

The rebels say they are fighting for better rights, but they have been
accused of wanting to split some ethnic Albanian areas from the rest of
Macedonia.


##### (2) #####

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010805/1/1a71n.html
Monday August 6, 6:34 AM

Macedonians, ethnic Albanians clear way for peace accord

Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political leaders cleared the way for a
peace accord in Macedonia, resolving the main remaining sticking point in
attempts to avert a new Balkan war.

"Both the Albanians and Macedonians have accepted the content of the
document that they have negotiated with our help," the European Union's
foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, after brokering the deal on the
crucial issue of police reform in areas of the country mainly inhabited by
ethnic Albanians.

The agreement late on Sunday by the two sides at internationally mediated
talks means that the major sticking points have now been cleared away and
the two sides can move to tying up the loose ends of an overall peace deal.

The two sides will meet again early Monday to finalise the details of a
comprehensive peace accord.

Once the peace accord has been signed NATO peacekeepers will sweep into the
former Yugoslav republic, disarming rebels who have been carrying out an
insurgency over minority rights, fighting Macedonian forces in the
northwestern hills since February.

The ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army were not at the
negotiating table, and whether peace sticks largely depends on how they
view the accord.

Shortly after Solana's announcement, two loud explosions were heard near
the tinderbox northwestern town of Tetovo, close to territory controlled by
ethnic Albanian rebels engaged in a six-month-old rebellion.

Government spokesmen could not be immediately contacted to give details of
the explosions. The talks, which move into their ninth day on Monday, were
originally scheduled to be held in Tetovo, but moved to Ohrid because of
the security situation around the northwestern town, which has borne the
brunt of heavy fighting during the uprising.

Solana urged the people of Macedonia to accept the chance for peace, saying
he had been impressed by the beauty of the country.

"All the efforts will be useless if the people of the country do not want
to forget the past and look forward," he said.

He said the international community wanted to create a Macedonia which is
"stable, prosperous and democratic, and has a European perspective."

The issue of the police was at the heart of rebel demands, as it concerns
policing in the very areas where they had carried out their insurgency.

Ethnic Albanians form up to one third of the two million inhabitants in
Macedonia, living mainly in the north of the country on the border with
Kosovo and in the west near Albania.

The talks had been overshadowed by pressure, as a fragile July 5 truce had
been marked by sporadic attacks.

Last week, as talks dragged on, the Skopje government also started to talk
tough, saying it was ready to use military force to drive out the rebels
from the positions they have occupied in the country.

Ethnic Albanians had demanded at the talks that the police make-up be
proportional to the country's ethnic divide.

Under Sunday's deal an extra 1,000 ethnic Albanian police officers will be
taken on in two stages over 2002 and 2003. When these are added to ethnic
Albanians already in the police, they will make up 23 percent of the
national police force.

The other major sticking point, the status of the Albanian language in the
country, was resolved last week.

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