SKOPJE (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Macedonia's parliament ratified a milestone peace accord with minority Albanians in a surprise early morning vote on Friday after almost two months of foot-dragging threatened to rekindle an ethnic conflict.The MPs proclaimed the 15 constitutional amendments as law with unexpectedly dizzying speed just 20 minutes after adopting them one-by-one by comfortable two-thirds majorities.
Hardline nationalists had almost wrecked the peace accord days before when the hawkish police minister sent special forces into the Albanian heartland, leading to fighting, arrests and retaliatory kidnappings.
The reforms would decentralize power and grant ethnic Albanians jobs in public service, above all the police, reflecting their one-third share of the two million population in the impoverished, landlocked ex-Yugoslav republic.
They would allow limited official use of Albanian language, require two-thirds support from Albanian MPs for legislation affecting civil rights, and remove references in the constitution's preamble that imply minorities are second-class citizens.
Engineered by European Union and U.S. diplomats, the August 13 Framework Agreement signed at Lake Ohrid aimed to end the fifth ethnic war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991 and foster fragile young democracies across the Balkans.
The extraordinary hour chosen for the vote -- just after midnight -- was intended to avoid any repeat of violent nationalist protests outside parliament and reduce publicity for an accord widely unpopular among majority Macedonians.
The Albanianl National Liberation Army (NLA), who burst out of northern Macedonia's border mountains in February, surrendered almost 4,000 weapons under a NATO disarmament scheme and disbanded in September to fulfil their end of the peace pact.