Word: macedonia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...While NATO presses for a political settlement in Macedonia - the alliance this week said it would send about 3,000 troops if the parties reach a deal and rebels agree to lay down arms - it's increasingly apparent that many in Macedonia's government and security forces still believe they can win outright on the battlefield. Key leaders of the Macedonian Slav majority, such as Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, continue to sound off about a military solution even as they participate in on-again-off-again talks with ethnic-Albanian political parties. Those talks are a long way from conclusion...
TIME.com: NATO says its ready to send troops into Macedonia to help disarm ethnic-Albanian rebels there. Is their deployment imminent...
...Andrew Purvis: No, right now it's mostly hypothetical. The alliance has spoken of sending in 3,000 troops (drawn from European armies), but only once two major obstacles have been cleared. The first is that the exceedingly diverse parties in Macedonia's coalition government must agree on a set of legislative and constitutional changes to address the grievances of the country's ethnic Albanians, and the second is that the rebel forces must agree to lay down their weapons in exchange for those political changes...
...what are the Europeans doing to bridge the gulf? Last week EU security chief Javier Solana rushed out of a meeting with President Bush to head for Macedonia, indicating how seriously NATO members view the crisis there. But what can they...
...persuade the parties to come to some sort of agreement, they've already threatened to reduce financial aid if there's no agreement by Monday, and that doesn't seem to have helped. Part of the problem here is that the Europeans have insufficient leverage in Macedonia...