NATO chief pressures Macedonians

Greek soldiers guard surrendered weapons

SKOPJE, Macedonia (CNN) -- The Macedonian parliament has been urged to ratify the peace deal thrashed out with Albanian rebels.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said rebels arms were being surrendered and it was now time for Macedonia's politicians to honour their side of the deal.

Parliament begins debating the deal on Friday -- but many politicians are concerned that the rebels will renege on its arms pledges -- and if the deal fails to get a two-thirds majority there could be a return to violence.

Robertson, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to meet NATO troops and Macedonian leaders, added that he believed 30 days would be enough for Operation Essential Harvest to achieve its goals.

The mission to collect rebel weapons could be extended by a few days, he said, although he doubted whether the North Atlantic Council of Ambassadors would approve an extension.

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CNN's Senior International Correspondent Walter Rodgers said Robertson's tone was "a little defensive" as he stressed NATO was there "merely to take the arms out of politics."

Robertson said: "It is the fact that the (ethnic Albanian rebels are) handing over these weapons and disbanding as organisation. That is the critical issue involved here today."

The first contingent of German troops have arrived in Macedonia after the German parliament voted in favour of sending 500 soldiers to Operation Essential Harvest.

The deployment received the green light after the opposition Christian Democrats said they would no longer oppose the mission.

Rodgers said one of the main tasks facing Robertson in Skopje was to urge a doubting Macedonian parliament to ratify the peace agreement between the government and ethnic Albanian rebels.

The secretary-general may find this a "hard sell," Rodgers said, with a two-thirds majority required in parliament for approval. The debate begins on Friday with a vote possible on Tuesday next week.

Rodgers said Robertson's visit showed there was "anxiety" in the NATO camp about the result.

Robertson said: "Just as I expect the insurgents to deliver on their commitments, I expect the Macedonian members of parliament to also recognise their responsibility."

Parliament is supposed to approve expanded political rights for the ethnic Albanians in exchange for the surrender of a third of their weapons. If it fails to do so, then the peace deal falls apart and violence is expected to resume.

Most Macedonians -- and Macedonian politicians -- are sceptical on whether the rebels will hand over either the majority of their arms or the best of them during the NATO operation to collect 3,300 weapons.

Hardline politicians have suggested they possess many more arms than are being surrendered -- more than 60,000.

NATO soldiers hope to have collected more than 1,000 weapons, a third of the way to its target, by the time parliament meets.

Rodgers, who witnessed the arms collections on Tuesday, said that fewer than 300 weapons had been surrendered on Tuesday after 500 on Monday.

But NATO commanders said the quality of the weapons handed in had improved -- as well as ancient carbines there were modern assault rifles and an anti-tank rocket launcher. A British lieutenant-colonel told him a number of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles had been handed in.

Tension in the country was shown hours before the secretary-general's visit as a blast thought to have been caused by a bomb rocked at a primary school for ethnic Albanians in a suburb of the Macedonian capital Skopje.

It was the third such explosion in three days. No one was reported injured.

NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo meanwhile said a mortar bomb was fired into Kosovo from Macedonia after an exchange of fire with a group of people trying to illegally cross the border.

Captain Daniel Byer, spokesman for the U.S. contingent of the KFOR force, said the incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon when the peacekeepers tried to stop 10 people coming across the border from Macedonia into U.N.-governed Kosovo.

He said the peacekeepers returned automatic weapons fire when they were shot at, after which the group retreated into Macedonia. No one was hurt.