NATO said today it was well ahead of schedule in its mission to collect weapons from rebels in Macedonia.
Maj-Gen Gunnar Lange, the Danish commander of the operation, delivered a letter to Macedonian President Mr Boris Trajkovski confirming the total arsenal gathered so far from the National Liberation Army (NLA) ethnic Albanian rebel force.
"I have just handed in a letter to the president informing him that during the first phase of the Task Force Harvest mission, more than one third of the weapons being declared by the so-called NLA . . . now have been collected," Maj-Gen Lange said.
NATO's 30-day mission to the former Yugoslav republic aims to collect 3,300 weapons from the NLA in return for constitutional changes favouring the ethnic Albanian minority.
A NATO spokesman said the alliance had gathered more than 1,400 weapons so far. It wanted to have 1,100 gathered by the end of the week so parliament could begin debating one third of the political reforms tomorrow.
"Within eight days, we are at where we expected to be at about day 20 of this operation," NATO spokesman Maj Barry Johnson told a news briefing.
NATO's announcement puts the onus on parliament to start ratifying political reforms the rebels demand in return.