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NATO to Meet on Full Disarmament Mission in Macedonia
NATO ambassadors in Brussels meet on Friday to discuss whether a green light should be given to sending the full complement of 3,500 troops to collect weapons of ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia, sources from the 19-member bloc said.
Envoys from all NATO governments decided on Wednesday to send a vanguard of 400 British troops to set up headquarters, communications and other elements this weekend as part of a peace plan agreed between the Macedonian government and the rebels under NATO's mediation. The advance team will start to deploy in Macedonia Friday.
The alliance said it will make further decisions on the full deployment of 3,500 troops to activate the disarmament operation code-named "harvest" under the condition of a durable truce.
However, the NATO proposal to avert a new Balkan war suffered a setback Thursday when a Macedonian policeman was shot dead in the northwestern town of Tetovo, apparently by a rebel sniper in defiance of a cease-fire declared Sunday. Fierce firefights erupted in Tetovo after the shooting, reports reaching here said.
According to the plan, NATO forces will stay for a 30-day mission to collect weapons due to be surrendered voluntarily by ethnic Albanian rebels at the end of a six-month conflict in return for political reforms favoring the one-third ethnic Albanian minority in the Balkan country.
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