Macedonia's peace talks hit a serious snag yesterday when leaders in the capital, Skopje, posed new "deal-breaker" conditions for a settlement to end an ethnic Albanian guerrilla uprising, Western sources said.
Leaders of the main Macedonian and ethnic Albanian political parties, who have been meeting for more than a week, had looked poised to finalise an agreement to avert a new Balkan war after a breakthrough on the issue of police reforms on Sunday.
"I'm shocked," the US envoy, Mr James Pardew, said, as word of the hitch emerged from the talks in the lakeside resort of Ohrid.
Western sources said the gist of the new Macedonian demands was a guarantee by the West that the rebels disarm swiftly after an accord is agreed, upsetting the synchronisation of political and military elements of the peace process agreed so far.
Western sources said another problem was that some of the countries expected to contribute to the NATO force were nervous about getting involved without evidence that both sides, split by deep distrust, will implement any accord.
The European Union peace broker, Mr Francois Leotard, said Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski would chair a security council meeting later yesterday in Ohrid with senior cabinet ministers from the Macedonian side.
"I am not afraid. I think we are on a good way but we need more time. One day, two days, not more I presume," Mr Leotard, a former French defence minister, told reporters.
But a Western source said: "These are deal-breaker demands."
The EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, had said during a visit to the talks on Sunday that only fine-tuning remained to be done and that an overall accord was within reach.
"The international mediators do not agree with these demands because they are afraid our side will also try to reopen something they thought was closed," an Albanian source said.
A Macedonian political source said the Macedonians wanted guarantees that the rebels would start disarming quickly after a package of reforms, covering everything from more Albanian language rights to education, was agreed.
They did not want to let the guerrillas wait for parliament to pass any package of reforms into law, a process meant to take at most 45 days. Ethnic Albanians comprise about one-third of the population.
Macedonians fear that granting ethnic Albanians more rights for their language and education is tantamount to capitulation at gunpoint if the rebels do not disarm first.
NATO is ready for rapid deployment of up to 3,500 troops in Macedonia if a peace deal is concluded and the guerrillas agree to relinquish their weapons - the next key step.