Macedonia agreed yesterday to end its bombardment of a village held by Albanian guerrillas in exchange for a rebel withdrawal, diplomatic sources said. The withdrawal was to be brokered by the European envoy, Mr Javier Solana.
Mr Solana, who has spearheaded Western efforts to wrest the Balkan state from the brink of civil war, said a cease-fire had been agreed which should ease pressure on the peace talks. These broke down before the army began its assault last week.
"There's a cease-fire here, it's good it is agreed, Skopje is not under threat," Mr Solana told reporters at a hotel near the village of Aracinovo. The rebels had threatened to shell the Macedonian capital from the village, which is just 10 km away from Skopje.
Just minutes before the army called an end to its three-day offensive, an assault denounced by NATO as "madness", reporters on the nearby Athens-Belgrade highway watched a final salvo of Katyusha rockets descend on Aracinovo, masking it in dense smoke.
State radio quoted the Macedonian Interior Minister as saying the army had secured victory in the strategic village and had almost wiped out the guerrillas.
Government sources said the bombardment with helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery had been halted for what they said was an as yet unspecified period, intended "to allow the terrorists to either leave Aracinovo or surrender".
But a diplomatic source said the rebels had already agreed to leave the village, which international monitors would turn into a demilitarised zone, and would be escorted to other parts of northern Macedonia which they control without being disarmed.
"They'll be taken with their weapons to a place of their choosing," the source said, adding that an agreement to this effect had been secured by inter national negotiators.
"This is not a victory or a defeat for either side," the source added. "It is a dishonourable score draw."
Diplomats said that Mr Solana, who met politicians on both sides of Macedonia's ethnic divide this weekend, had secured agreement to resume talks.
Diplomats had feared that if the Macedonian assault on Aracinovo was not stopped and progress made on the political front by the EU's deadline of today, the rebels might resort to major attacks and these could lead the two sides into all-out war.