SKOPJE (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Macedonia said on Saturday the passage of reforms crucial to a peace accord meant that former Albanian fighters who fought police a week ago had no more grounds to resist the return of state authorities in the near future.Bowing to Western diplomatic pressure, parliament enacted improvements to the civil rights of minority Albanians on Friday after six weeks of delay and five days after ex-Albanian fighters killed three members of special forces sent into their heartland by the nationalist police minister.
The foray, ostensibly intended to secure a ``mass grave'' site, was condemned by diplomats as an attempt to sabotage reforms in parliament by provoking violence with insurgents who feared arrest because an amnesty had yet to be issued.
The bloodshed stirred extraordinary recriminations within the cabinet and the otherwise hawkish Macedonian media for a ''needless sacrifice'' of police lives.
Apparently chastened, Macedonian nationalist leaders stopped blocking parliamentary action on the equal rights amendments stipulated by the August peace accord and they were overwhelmingly ratified on Friday.
President Boris Trajkovski then declared a broad, unequivocal amnesty for Albanian fighters not indictable by the U.N. war crimes tribunal. An earlier decree had big loopholes, unnerving Albanian fighters already dismayed by parliament's inaction.
But nationalist leaders scored a resonant political point off Sunday's violence, saying it proved what they call ``Albanian terrorists'' had withheld firepower from a NATO disarmament scheme and could use it against the state in future.