Macedonian helicopters rocketed rebel ethnic Albanian positions northeast of the capital on Monday as NATO Secretary General George Robertson was landing at Skopje airport, within earshot of the battle.
Reuters reporters near the village of Vakcince said Macedonian Army artillery had begun shelling early in the morning.
At about 0745 GMT, two Soviet-made Mi-8 helicopters flew low over suspected rebel positions at the edge of Vakcince, firing rockets at targets out of sight to reporters.
“Our aim is to continue the operation until the terrorists are neutralized. The fact that Robertson is here does not mean that we have to let the terrorists march in to Skopje central square,” said government spokesman Antonio Milosovski.
He said the government expected parliament to take a decision on Tuesday whether to introduce a state of war, expanding the powers of the presidency and security forces, or heed Western appeals not to take such a radical step.
DIPLOMATIC DOUBLE
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in Skopje late on Sunday in a bid to support the government and persuade it that declaring a state of war would not help defeat the ethnic Albanian insurgency, which Macedonia says is coming from Kosovo.
After talks with President Boris Trajkovski and Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski over dinner, EU sources said Solana felt that “we're not going to see a declaration of war.”
The Red Cross on Sunday said hundreds of mainly ethnic Albanian civilians are huddling in their basements in Vakcince and Slupcane, weathering the daily firestorm.
If they became casualties of an all-out assault, the former Yugoslav republic's uneasy ethnic cohabitation between Albanians and Slavs could suffer a crippling blow.
Speaking for her 14 EU counterparts after talks in Sweden, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh on Sunday urged Macedonia “not to fall into the trap of provocations” by armed rebels.
Solana has called for a “grand coalition” of all Macedonia's parliamentary parties. EU sources said there were signs of progress toward that goal in his talks.
NATO's Robertson joined the talks directly after landing and a news conference was scheduled for noon (1000 GMT.)
BATTLE ALMOST ON SERBIAN BORDER
Macedonia's latest battleground is 30 km northwest of the capital Skopje, and just a few km from the main Greece-to-Hungary highway. It is a 15-minute drive from the Yugoslav border, where the highway runs north along the guerrilla-infested edge of southern Serbia's Presevo Valley.
The Macedonian Army spokesman, Blagoja Markovski, said fighting had begun at dawn on Monday when about 20 Albanian guerrillas opened fire on the positions of security forces from the direction of Lojane, on the Serbian border.
In a communiqué, the rebel “National Liberation Army” again offered a cease-fire in exchange for direct talks with the government to prevent what it said would be further civilian deaths from the army's “indiscriminate use of force.”
The government has ruled out talks with the guerrillas.
Major powers had hoped that the risk of a wider conflict propelling Macedonia to civil war had been smothered last month when a government offensive drove back guerrilla forces from hills above Tetovo.
According to the constitution, a state of war requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
As Slav-based parties already have this, approval would seem to be assured -- but at the cost of alienating the ethnic Albanian mainstream parties -- SKOPJE (Reuters)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
