SKOPJE (Islamweb & News Agencies) - NATO is likely to resume collecting weapons from ethnic Albanian fighters in Macedonia Friday as top European Union officials try to build up momentum for political reform.
This comes on the heels of a ground breaking decision by parliament to start drafting constitutional reforms to grant more rights to ethnic Albanians and thus undermine popular support for the seven-month old armed revolt for equal rights.
Western diplomats, increasingly confident that the NATO mission will collect 3,300 weapons from the Albanian fighters by Sept. 26, are seriously considering a further international security arrangement to prevent a relapse into violence. (Read photo caption below)
After a delay that threatened to derail NATO's disarmament program, parliament voted overwhelmingly Thursday to authorize a procedure to rewrite key parts of the constitution to improve the civil rights of minority Albanians, who form about a third of the two million population.
The reforms would decentralize power, allow greater official use of the Albanian language, recognize higher education in Albanian and give Albanians jobs in public service, especially the police, commensurate with their share of the population.
The Albanian fighters of the National Liberation Army, or NLA, have pledged to hand in their weapons and disband in return for the reforms. They have handed in more than 1,200 arms so far but halted the disarmament while waiting for parliament's move.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Nicholas Le Rose, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter gunner from the U.S. Aviation Regiment, part of Task Force Harvest (TFH), looks from his combat position at the flashpoint town of Tetovo, September 6, 2001. Macedonia's parliament speaker sought to end a marathon debate on a Western-backed peace plan to allow a vote paving the way for a new round of disarmament by ethnic Albanian guerrillas. (Oleg Popov/Reuters)