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Macedonian Rebels Try to Create "Bigger Kosovo State," Envoy Says
A top Macedonian diplomat said Wednesday that the agenda of the terrorist extremists in his country "has nothing to do with the human rights of the Albanians in Macedonia," but to add part of Macedonian territory to Kosovo, a Yugoslav province, in order to create "a bigger independent Kosovo state."
Naste Calovski, the Macedonian permanent representative to the United Nations, told a press conference here that "the extremists are using terrorist method to promote whatever agenda they have," and "their agenda has nothing to do with the human rights of the Albanians in Macedonia."
Describing such an agenda as "strange Utopia," Calovski said that "there is no Albanian problem in Macedonia."
The integration of ethnic Albanians into the Macedonian community is successful, and Albanians are taking leading positions in government, parliament, army and other institutions, he said.
"In Macedonia, we even do not call Albanians minority, we call them nationality," he said.
About 30 percent of the people of Macedonia are ethnic Albanians; Slavs are the majority. Rebels have launched attacks against Macedonian forces to win more rights for the Balkan country's ethnic Albanians who they say are treated as second class citizens.
The rebels have used Kosovo, a Serbian province in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as a rear supply base.
"Extremists from Kosovo try to enter Macedonia, well armed with a lot of military supplies," he said. "Their effort is going on, we have to find a way to stop them."
Meanwhile, the senior Macedonian diplomat stressed that what is going on is not a confrontation between Macedonians and Albanians, but a confrontation between democracy, rule of law on the one hand, terrorism and violence on the other.
Calovski called upon the NATO-led peacekeepers to ensure security in Kosovo and stop extremists from entering Macedonia.
The Macedonian government issued an ultimatum Tuesday to the rebels who occupy the hills overlooking the city of Tetovo, ordering them to surrender or withdraw in 24 hours, or face being wiped out.
The United States and Britain said Wednesday that they had no plans to send additional peacekeeping troops to Kosovo or dispatch forces to Macedonia to help the former Yugoslav republic put down the rebellion by insurgents there.
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