Macedonia's Slav and ethnic Albanian leaders yesterday settled in for a long weekend of crucial reform talks designed to end a four-month Albanian rebellion, as sporadic fighting continues despite a rebel ceasefire announcement.
President Boris Trajkovski and the leaders of the four parties in the emergency government of national unity - two Slav, two Albanian - plan to meet at an undisclosed location in Skopje for the highly sensitive talks, in a bid to finally break the political and military deadlock.
Mr Trajkovski has said he will put on the table "even the most difficult and sensitive issues", which aides said meant discussing possible changes to the constitution.
Ethnic Albanian political leaders and rebels want to change the constitution to elevate their status to that of a nation equal to the Macedonian Slav majority, instead of being just another ethnic minority. The Macedonian Slav parties which dominate the ruling coalition have so far refused to amend the constitution, fearing this would pave the way to Albanian federalism.
The government is hoping that a breakthough on the political front will persuade NATO to deploy a limited number of troops to oversee a government backed disarmament plan while the rebels take advantage of an amnesty for Macedonian-born fighters.
The rebels have so far refused to quit until they are given a place in the talks, which Slav leaders reject outright.
The NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, flew into Skopje on Thursday for talks with all party leaders and Mr Trajkovski, accompanied by the EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana.
Lord Robertson gave his full backing to the plan but this week's NATO summit said it would get involved in overseeing the rebel disarmament only if Macedonian leaders reached a political agreement on reforms to allay persistent Albanian complaints of discrimination.
Mr Solana told the EU summit yesterday he thought that NATO would give a "favourable" response to the Macedonian request for assistance.
Lord Robertson said the army would maintain its policy of restraint - announced at the start of the week - for the duration of the talks. In response to Lord Robertson's appeal for the rebels to do the same, the National Liberation Army (NLA) declared its own 12-day ceasefire, effective from midnight on Thursday.
But like most previous ceasefires, the truce was quickly shattered by mortar fire that the army said targeted its positions near Opaje, in the rebel-held hills between Skopje and the northern city of Kumanovo.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said more than 28,000 people had fled Macedonia in the last week, 25,000 of them - including a 103-yearold woman in a wheelchair - ethnic Albanians heading for Kosovo.
The rebels occupy a small town on the outskirts of Skopje, as well as a group of villages in the Black Mountains.
Police said yesterday they had shot dead a rebel trying to smuggle arms into the suburb of Aracinovo. They added they had also found the body of an ethnic Albanian civilian in a house on the outskirts of Tetovo, in the north-west.