Violence tests Macedonia deal

Humanitarian agencies fear for the fate of villagers caught in the cross-fire

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- NATO and the European Union have reaffirmed their support for Macedonia's fledgling coalition government while urging it to press ahead with reforms aimed at healing deep inter-ethnic rivalries.

The two bodies called on Wednesday for an immediate end to violence and said the international community would not negotiate with extremists or their agents.

The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana also gave details of his diplomatic efforts 24-hours earlier to secure a NATO-backed deal to rescue the unity government.

But as the statements were being made in Hungary, where foreign ministers are gathered for a summit, Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels traded machine gun fire.

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The police and army pledged to press on with their offensive against the guerillas, issuing an appeal to thousands of civilians trapped in rebel-held villages to join an internationally-supervised evacuation.

Police sources told the Associated Press they had lined up dozens of buses and that the evacuation was expected to begin later on Wednesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said they were prepared to supervise efforts to bring the civilians out.

Kris Janowski, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 people were "trapped" in rebel-held villages besieged by government forces.

He said some of them had been ordered by the rebels to stay, while thousands had managed to pull out.

Solana had been trying to persuade Macedonia's Slavic and ethnic Albanian leaders to revive co-operation in their national unity government.

The cabinet had been deadlocked since last week when ethnic Albanian political leaders signed a peace deal with the rebel forces fighting government troops for several weeks.

Macedonia's Slavic leaders had insisted the ethnic Albanian politicians renounce the deal before co-operation could resume.

Under the agreement brokered by Solana, the peace agreement with the rebels was annulled.

Solana met for seven hours with the leaders of Macedonia's three Slavic political parties and two ethnic Albanian parties, then flew to Budapest to brief foreign ministers.

He returned to Skopje on Tuesday to clinch the deal and was back in Hungary on Wednesday morning.

"There is more hope today in the Balkans than at any time in the last decade," said NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson.

Macedonia is a key staging area for NATO's peacekeeping operation in Kosovo to the north and hosts thousands of NATO forces.

NATO leads about 21,000 troops in Bosnia and another 45,000 in Kosovo.

The EU and NATO are also trying to deal with a rift over plans to allow the EU's proposed 60,000-man rapid reaction force to use NATO assets on peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

Key to the success of this force, however, is access to NATO planning facilities and other assets such as satellite intelligence, command and control and communications.