New Macedonia border clashes

Army and rebels forces exchanged mortar fire

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Renewed fighting between Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels has taken place along the Kosovo border, the army has said.

A military spokesman said the clashes broke out before dawn on Saturday and had continued for about five hours although no casualties had been confirmed.

And NATO troops in Kosovo have detained 30 suspected rebels caught trying to cross the border into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

U.S. Army spokeswoman Captain Alayne Cramer said the men were all of "military age" and that one group of the detained men had been carrying several machine guns, sniper rifles, and ammunition.

Macedonian military spokesman Colonel Blagoja Markovski said the clash with rebels had taken place near the village of Gracane, about 6 miles north of the capital, Skopje.

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He said about 12 rebels has slipped across the border from Kosovo and began sniping at a Macedonian army watchtower at Caska, near the Blace border crossing. The army responded with mortar and small-arms fire, he said.

The Macedonian Government has said it believes the military campaign against the rebels is nearing completion.

And international pressure is growing for dialogue with ethnic Albanians inside Macedonia.

So far, the government has refused to negotiate with the rebels but they have appeared willing to talk to moderate Albanian political parties.

Spokesman Antonio Milososki said on Friday: "The political battle is still to come. We must preserve Macedonia as our common country."

But a leading moderate ethnic Albanian Arben Xhaferi warned his patience was running out in the battle for improved rights.

Xhaferi, the leader of Macedonia's main Albanian party and a key partner in the coalition administration, said he would walk out of government unless the solutions were found with one month.

"My withdrawal would mean the complete polarisation of Macedonian politics along ethnic lines and it would be total war between Albanians and Macedonians, " he said.

The armed rebels insist their fight is not separatist but that they are fighting for greater rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up more than a quarter of Macedonia's population of two million.

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Government of Macedonia
NATO
U.N. in Kosovo

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