Macedonian and ethnic Albanian leaders yesterday removed the last obstacles to the deployment of a NATO task force to disarm rebels, paving the way for a wide-ranging peace deal.
NATO's North Atlantic Council gave the alliance the go-ahead to send in the lead units of the proposed force after Skopje said it would grant rebels an amnesty and guerrilla leaders confirmed that they would lay down their guns. Up to 400 British troops are expected to arrive in Skopje by tomorrow. The rest of the 3,500-strong multinational force are to arrive once the alliance is convinced that a ceasefire is holding.
"This is not an order to activate the entire mission. This is an agreement that command and control elements can deploy," said NATO spokesman Maj Barry Johnson.
Danish Maj Gen Gunnar Lange, who will command Operation Essential Harvest, said: "The ceasefire must be respected. Our soldiers will not come here to enforce a peace. When the right conditions exist, NATO is fully prepared to fulfil our commitment with a rapid deployment of forces to collect and destroy arms and ammunition."
The NATO mission is to collect the weapons surrendered by ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA), who have seized a swathe of territory in the north and west of the country.
The force will have a strictly limited mandate, and will not seek to seize weapons if they are not deposited within designated collection areas, Maj Gen Lange said.
But even as NATO announced that it was ready to send in the first troops, the Macedonian government's crisis information centre said that fighting had flared up once again between guerrillas and government troops.
Security forces responded to an attack by rebels armed with rocket-launchers on a position near Vaksince, a bombed out village near Macedonia's northern border, and "terrorists" had threatened and beaten Macedonian villagers in the mainly ethnic Albanian north-west of the country, it said.
British military sources said the air assault brigade headquarters which would command the multinational force could be in place by tomorrow, a timetable confirmed by Macedonian officials.
The NLA agreed to disarm after Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians on Monday signed a Western-brokered peace plan that would address Albanian complaints that they are treated like second-class citizens.
"The NLA agrees with the need for a complete demilitarisation and co-operation with NATO in Operation Essential Harvest and supports the political document signed on Monday in Skopje," said Mr Ali Ahmeti, the NLA's political leader.
In Skopje, the Foreign Minister, Ms Ilinka Mitreva, said she had signed a "Status of Forces" agreement with NATO to set the terms of the task force's deployment.
President Boris Trajkovski said rebels who co-operated with the peace plan and handed in their weapons would benefit from an amnesty, unless they had committed serious crimes which could be tried at the UN International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.
Maj Gen Lange said that once the operation proper had begun, the NATO troops arriving would undergo one or two days of training before beginning a 14-day period of deployment to bases around Macedonia, he said.
They would then have 30 days to receive weapons voluntarily deposited at collection sites by members of the NLA, take them out of the country and destroy them, he said.
British military sources said the command structure of the force, the 16 Air Assault Brigade, and a security team from the Parachute Regiment would first go to Petrovec. When NATO allies sent their contingents, the weapons collection programme could begin in rebel-held areas over the following two weeks if the ceasefire holds, they said.
In addition to the large British contingent, Essential Harvest is expected to include troops from the Czech, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Spanish and Turkish armies, NATO sources said.
About 800 US troops already in Macedonia to provide logistical support to the NATO-led peacekeepers in neighbouring Kosovo will help out with the operation, but Washington is cautious about committing fresh forces.