The Macedonian government, in a major policy change, is offering an amnesty to the ethnic Albanian gunmen who began an insurgency three months ago. And to the country's Albanian minority at large it is offering political concessions, including a change in the constitution to make Albanian an official language.
The dramatic shift was announced by the Prime Minister, Mr Ljubco Georgievski. "We have an obligation towards the international community to create a Macedonia which will suit the Albanians," Macedonia state television reported him saying. "That is our only solution. That is an agenda for peace."
After frequently declaring victory over the gunmen of the National Liberation Army in several offensives from March onwards, the Prime Minister - who has a reputation as a hardliner - said: "Macedonia has been in a war for three months now. We have a very determined and stubborn enemy. Who wants to go on waging war?"
Ethnic Albanians make up around a third of Macedonia's two million population.
The rebels still hold several villages north-west of the northern town of Kumanovo. Thousands of civilians are hiding in the basements to avoid army shelling.
The amnesty was offered by President Boris Trajkovski, Macedonian television reported, in a letter to Lord Robertson, the NATO SecretaryGeneral. All except those who organised the insurgency or killed Macedonian police or soldiers would qualify, and a safe corridor would be provided for them to retreat to Kosovo.
The change has come after pressure from NATO and the EU's foreign policy chief, Dr Javier Solana, who has visited Macedonia twice this week. It will please some people and upset others.
The national unity government of two Albanian and two Slav parties is still in a precarious condition, having almost collapsed a few days ago. After hearing of the proposals, the leader of one of its Slav parties, Mr Branko Crvenkovski of the Social Democratic Alliance, said there was a "danger that the coalition might fall apart" if Albanian Macedonians were granted rights equal to the Slav majority.
The Prime Minister made it clear he was accepting the international plan reluctantly.
"Some would say Macedonia would capitulate with this peace agenda, but it is obvious this is the only solution we have at the moment," he said. Albanian would "most probably" be declared a second official language and the Macedonian Orthodox Church would lose its privileged place in the constitution.
Thousands of people are still caught up in the fighting. The Red Cross has failed in an attempt to open a food corridor to 13,000 people in Lipkovo, near the Kosovan border, and evacuate those wanting to leave, because their security could not be guaranteed.
The Albanians wanted assurances that men would not be separated from women and children or be taken for questioning by the Macedonian police. Dozens of men have been beaten in the police stations in Kumanovo and Skopje.
Yugoslav security forces reoccupied the last chunk of a buffer zone around Kosovo yesterday, taking back final control from the ethnic Albanian guerrillas who used it as a base for a 16month insurgency. Rebel commander Mr Shefket Musliu said after giving himself up last week that 450 demobilised guerrillas now in Kosovo were expected to become part of a multi-ethnic police force.