NATO has started Operation Essential Harvest, a 3,500-troop mission with the task of collecting weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels engaged in a seven-month conflict with Macedonian government forces over their minority rights.
NATO's Secretary General, Lord Robertson, said the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen Joseph Ralston, was "confident he could start the weapons collection at the beginning of next week", but cautioned it was a "multi-national operation" and that many of those involved were not yet ready.
He called the decision to launch the operation "the right one", but cautioned it may be dangerous. "There are risks involved," he said. "Members of the alliance recognise that . . . But the risks of not sending troops are far greater."
He added: "A civil war in Macedonia would be a bloodbath."
Lord Robertson said NATO troops in Macedonia "would respond" if fired upon. "That is standard practice," he said. In Skopje, Macedonian officials welcomed the NATO decision. A defence ministry spokesman, Mr Marjan Gjurovski, said the mission would be monitored by government officials and that the authorities would do all they could to help it succeed.
Gen Ralston was meanwhile in Tirana yesterday where he received assurance from the Albanian Prime Minister, Mr Ilir Meta, that he would encourage the ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia to respect the peace accords signed by Macedonia's political leaders.
Lord Robertson said the number of weapons to be collected from guerrillas of the National Liberation Army was not yet certain, and would be ascertained by troops on the ground. He stressed the job of the operation, as requested by the Skopje government, was to "collect the arms that have been declared", and not to search for arms which may be hidden.
"We are not in the business of detective work," he said. "The role we have been asked to play by the Macedonian government is to collect arms from ethnic Albanian groups who have said they will disarm . . . That's what we will do - no more, no less." He would not speculate on the extension of the mission which is to take 30 days, saying NATO military commanders were confident it could be accomplished "within the specified time frame".
Lord Robertson warned those "who believe in a violent or military solution" to the conflict that "there is no solution in violence. There is only death, destruction, misery and poverty".
The launch of the operation, Lord Robertson said, "is not the end of the road. It is one part of a process which will see the implementation of the historic agreement signed by the leaders of the political parties on the 13th of August". He was referring to an accord signed in Skopje in which the Macedonian parties agreed to the Albanian demands for constitutional reforms recognising their civil rights.
A battalion of British paratroopers numbering up to 700 men will take off for Macedonia on Thursday and will join a 400-strong British contingent already setting up headquarters and arms collection points around Macedonia. The Dutch parliament yesterday approved the dispatch of 250 troops to Macedonia while in Berlin, the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is to meet next week to determine whether to send 500 German troops.