Macedonia to decentralise power

Matejce has been shelled for several days

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Macedonia's unity government is considering decentralising power in an effort to defuse an ethnic Albanian insurgency.

But Sunday's talks between the four main partners in the ethnically-mixed coalition ended with no firm agreements as Macedonian security forces continued to bombard villages in the northeast with artillery and helicopter gunships.

President Boris Trajkovski said a process aimed at giving more power to local government and drawing more ethnic Albanians in state institutions had been agreed, Reuters reported.

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"Proposals for models of (local) self-government will be considered at the next meeting," he said after four hours of talks.

The president did not say when the next meeting would be.

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The leaders of the two main ethnic Albanian political parties did not attend the talks -- sending deputies in their stead.

One of those who did not attend, Arben Xhaferi, head of the Democratic Party of Albanians, said on Saturday that the rebels needed to be represented in discussions, a position the majority Slav parties fiercely reject.

Xhaferi said that a deal negotiated by ethnic Albanian political parties with the rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) was Macedonia's best chance for peace.

"We can only end the war by negotiating with players in the war, and that includes the NLA," Xhaferi told Reuters.

Earlier this week in the face of domestic and international opposition, Xhaferi and Imer Imeri of the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) -- also represented on Sunday by his deputy -- reluctantly agreed to set aside the pact.

In the latest Macedonian assault, Reuters reported that the army targeted four of about a dozen northeastern villages held by rebels since early May.

The villages -- Matejce, Otlja, Slupcane and Orizare -- were pounded throughout Sunday by long-range artillery.

The army said rocket fire from helicopter gunships destroyed a column of 20 to 30 rebels trying to take up positions at the mediaeval monastery above Matejce but a rebel commander named Shpati denied the claim.

"This is Macedonian propaganda. They want to win the war with words," he told Reuters.

He added that his forces were holding their positions and only one rebel had been lightly wounded.

The rebels say they are seeking greater rights and recognition for Macedonia's minority ethnic Albanians.

The government argues that they are terrorists bent on grabbing land and carving out an ethnic Albanian mini-state linked with the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo.