Macedonia aims to form an emergency coalition government today to isolate ethnic Albanian guerrillas but the rebels say a deal will not end their insurgency regardless of which parties sign up.
The army has scaled down shelling of rebel-held mountain villages as the West piles pressure on the Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP) to complete an all-party coalition designed to stop a fragile ethnic mix fragmenting in civil war.
Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski has given the PDP a final chance to back the plan when he meets party leaders at 11 a.m. Irish time but rejected its call for a lasting ceasefire before it joins.
Western leaders appealed to the PDP to stop fighting over terms and make the national unity government a reality first.
"When the nation's very survival is at stake there is no room for playing politics," NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said in Madrid. He was repeating what diplomats have told the PDP in Skopje.
But the guerrillas - who say they have not budged an inch despite a week of shelling - dismissed talks that exclude them and demanded an internationally brokered agreement to address the grievances of Macedonia's one-third Albanian minority.