Western mediators in Macedonia hope a meeting at midday today will bring a breakthrough to efforts to bring peace and avert civil war, a Western source said.
Ethnic Albanian delegates were considering a proposal from their Macedonian counterparts on the most sensitive issue of the talks, which aim to end a five-month-old Albanian guerrilla revolt by improving the rights of the country's one-third Albanian minority.
They were expected to bring a decision to the meeting.
The issue - the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia - has been the focus of four days of tough negotiations between Macedonian and ethnic Albanian party leaders at a presidential villa on lake Ohrid to the southwest of the ex-Yugoslav republic.
"Talks will reopen at noon (11 a.m. Irish time) and we're very, very close on language," the source said.
The source declined to comment on whether Albanian delegates were seeking to coordinate their stance with the guerrillas, who are excluded from the talks, chaired by Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski.
One Albanian negotiator, Imer Imeri of the smaller of the two Albanian parties, PDP, said yesterday evening that agreement on language could be close.
"There is a real possibility of reaching an agreement on the language issue by noon tomorrow. I can say that today most of the work was done," he said.
But another Albanian source, who declined to be identified, said the proposal fell short of what they wanted."We will stick to our demands, which we believe are realistic," the source said.