Macedonian Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders were due to meet with President Boris Trajkovski Wednesday to try to overcome setbacks in negotiations on an EU-US plan to end six months of conflict, officials said.
The meeting comes amid television reports of automatic gunfire overnight in the northwest town of Tetovo despite a two-week ceasefire between ethnic Albanian rebels and government troops.
Since the ceasefire was announced, Macedonia's two Slav and two ethnic Albanian parties have been locked in intense negotiations with EU and US envoys on changes to the constitution 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.
In a statement released Wednesday, the US and EU envoys said the draft political settlement on the table provides for retaining Macedonian as the "primary official language" throughout the country, and maintaining 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 the envoys Francois Leotard and James Pardew.
The Albanians are calling for the head of the local police 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 that point Tuesday night to the EU and US envoys to Macedonia and also rejected the demand that Albanian become an official language on the grounds 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.
The 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 rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA).
Macedonian television said rebels had fired shots near a military base in the mainly Albanian town of Tetevo overnight on Tuesday but troops had not responded.
Meanwhile the defence ministry said rebels were continuing to regroup in the northeast regions of Kumanovo and Lipkovo, where they have controlled several villages since May.
Since February this year the NLA has been fighting in the north for greater rights for Macedonia's Albanian minority.
NATO Secretary General George Robertson and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana are due to visit Macedonia on Thursday to try to help overcome the latest problems.
Foreign ministers from the five-nation "Contact Group" on former Yugoslavia 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 a tougher line with the Albanians, whose politicians have close links to the rebellion that has pushed the republic to the brink of civil war -- SKOPJE (AFP)
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