Macedonia to unveil new ministers

President Boris Trajkovski, left, meets Nato's Lord Robertson and the EU's Javier Solana

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Members of Macedonia's new Cabinet are to be unveiled Saturday after the country's disparate political parties agreed to forge a new coalition government.

The decision to form a unity government offers a measure of stability to a country struggling to quell an ethnic Albanian insurgency.

The coalition replaces Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski's previous, smaller alliance of parties, although the new panel includes leftists and central-right conservatives, but few considered to be moderate.

"The parties reiterated their common interest that the security situation in the country should be their basic task," said Georgievski.

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"The main goal of this government will be security and stabilisation of Macedonia, continuation of intensified political dialogue and organization of a fair, early election," he added.

The so-called national unity government emerged after a key ethnic Albanian party dropped its objections to joining.

The accord was signed by the leaders of four main parties, including the two biggest opposition groupings, the Slav-led Socialists and the ethnic Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity (PDP).

Other signatories were Georgievski's Slav-dominated VMRO-DPMNE, and the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), the top Albanian party and a member of the current government.

Parliament was due Sunday to approve the new government.

The last holdout, the Party for Democratic Prosperity, had demanded that the government halt attacks on militants before talks could begin -- and acquiesced after the army held its fire for the better part of a day on Friday.

Western organisations exerted their own pressure, alarmed that the escalating exchanges of machine-gun fire and mortar rounds would suck this fragile country into another Balkan war.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said it was time for all of Macedonia's parties to "unite in the interest of survival," and U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher hailed the coalition as "a major step forward."

The new government "demonstrates that there is a broad national consensus in Macedonia to support dialogue and to act firmly against the violence," Boucher said.

Macedonian soldiers watch ethnic Albanian rebels at the village of Matejce

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, called the alliance a "concrete expression" of unity.

"Those responsible for terrorist acts must know that they are totally isolated," Solana said.

The rebels were pointedly not included in efforts to resolve the most serious crisis in Macedonia since it broke away from Yugoslavia a decade ago.

The government refuses to negotiate with the militants, describing them as terrorists bent on carving up the country to create a Greater Albania or Greater Kosovo.

The militants of the National Liberation Army say they are fighting for more rights for ethnic Albanians, who make up as much as one third of the country's two million people.

The national unity government represents a key development in Macedonia's efforts to contain the ethnic Albanian insurgency, which began in February.

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Macedonian Government
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