President George Bush, European Union leaders and Nato have given gave broad backing for a Macedonian government peace plan to end the fighting with ethnic Albanians - but effectively ruled out sending peacekeepers directly into the Balkan republic, as the rebels have demanded.
Speaking in Skopje last night, the Nato Secretary General, Lord George Robertson, broadly endorsed President Boris Rajkovski's proposals, calling for a ceasefire, a partial amnesty for the Albanian guerrillas and the promise of greater political representation.
But direct Nato military intervention, he made clear, was not on the agenda.
Earlier, the US-EU summit in Sweden sent a similar message, calling for a political solution to the crisis, and a dialogue between the two sides. The Rajkovski plan is currently no more than a blueprint.
But Xavier Solana, Europe's foreign policy chief who accompanied Lord Robertson to Skopje, said the Macedonian authorities must take the first steps by June 25, the date of an EU foreign ministers meeting.
Nato's stance will disappoint the ethnic Albanians who want a general ceasefire, the integration of their troops into the Slav-dominated Macedonian army, and a political agreement guaranteed by the US, the EU and Nato.
The NLA rebal army is calling for "intervention of Nato forces in the whole territory of Macedonia, as a guarantee for a lasting peace."
Instead, they are likely to be offered the same kind of amnesty as was extended to the Albanian insurgents in southern Serbia last month. These latter were instructed to cross over into Kosovo and hand over their weapons to Nato peacekeepers.
There seems no question of units of K-For, the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, being diverted south into Macedonia, despite the risk of a full-scale civil war, destablising the entire south Balkan region.
Britain meanwhile is offering to send training teams to help the ramshackle Macedonian army. But Ministry of Defence officials stressed these units would not become active participants in the fighting.
Britain's involvement would be similar to its role in Sierra Leone, but on a much smaller scale.
Albanian rebels published their demands for ending their four-month insurgency for the first time on yesterday calling for political reforms, amnesty and the deployment of Nato troops.
In a communique signed by the political leader of the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA) Ali Ahmeti, the group put forward several demands for political concessions to the one-third Albanian minority.
The NLA said Nato military intervention was essential to ending the rebellion.
"With the presence of Nato it would be possible to reach the agreement for the transformation and demilitarisation of the NLA," the plan said.
It called for "NATO intervention in the whole territory of Macedonia, as a guarantee for...reaching a lasting peace".
A shaky joint truce entered a fourth day yesterday but was punctuated by overnight exchanges of mortar and machine gun fire on the outskirts of Tetovo, the biggest ethnic Albanian town.
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