The Macedonian prime minister yesterday urged tougher action to recapture territory held by ethnic Albanian insurgents, saying it would be shameful to sign a peace deal under rebel threats.
Mr Ljubco Georgievski expressed hope that talks between Macedonia's fractious political parties - who made a breakthrough on Wednesday by agreeing wider use of the Albanian language - could end with a scheme to avert a new Balkan war.
"But signing that document while our territories are occupied by terrorists would be a shameful agreement for Macedonia," he said in a speech in southern Yugoslavia on Macedonia's national day.
"We must take back our occupied territories because we can't close our eyes to the fact that we are talking under the threat of guns," he said at a monastery where Macedonians agreed on August 2nd, 1944, to become a part of Yugoslavia.
He said Macedonian police and soldiers were "ready to implement the constitution", which describes the country as indivisible and under central government control.
Ethnic Albanian rebels, fighting for greater rights for minority Albanians who make up about a third of the population, control a swathe of northern and western Macedonia.
"All the Albanian extremists in Kosovo, southern Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro have only one goal - the creation of a greater Albania," he said. In an apparent criticism of the more moderate President Boris Trajkovski, Mr Georgievski said: "Unfortunately today we have a strong and decisive people but indecisive leadership."
The speech by Mr Georgievski, a nationalist hardliner in the government formed in May, dampened optimism after leaders of the nation's four main ethnic Albanian and Slav political parties agreed to wider use of Albanian as an official language.
The dispute over Albanian had been a main sticking point in the talks, brokered by European and US envoys.
Under the agreement, Albanian will be an official language in areas where ethnic Albanians make up more than 20 per cent.
The talks, in the southern lakeside town of Ohrid, took a break yesterday for the national holiday but will resume today for a sixth day.
"I'm an optimist that with a bit of political will we can reach the end and sign a document," Mr Georgievski said.
But he said that signing a peace deal with rebels in control of large parts of the country would leave Macedonians feeling ashamed for a decade while fuelling the rebels' cause.
A 25-year-old policeman was shot and injured in the chest by rebels near the north-western town of Tetovo yesterday but doctors said his wounds were not life-threatening. A much-violated ceasefire has been in place since July 5th.
A Macedonian policeman shot dead two days ago was buried in a ceremony in Tetovo during which explosions could be heard from nearby mountains.
Skopje was quiet with shops and businesses closed in blazing summer sunshine. Yesterday also marks the anniversary of the start of a 10-day uprising against Ottoman rule in 1903.
Mr Georgievski's remarks contrasted sharply with those of the more moderate foreign minister, Ms Ilinka Mitreva, who urged talks and said the uprising could not be crushed by military force.
"Unfortunately lately there are more and more artificial heroes who are . . . offering primitive formulas saying that dialogue equals weakness, with which they are beating the drums of war," she said in a speech in south-western Macedonia.
The deal on language hinges on politicians agreeing a wider pact of constitutional reforms. NATO has said that once a deal is in place it is willing to deploy 3,000 troops to whom the rebels will hand in weapons.
A diplomatic source rejected some suggestions by ethnic Albanian politicians that the language issue was only partly resolved. "The issue cannot be reopened," he said.