Facing continued violence, NATO insisted today its Macedonian mission will end on time this month - but admitted thoughts must now turn to what comes after the withdrawal of Operation Essential Harvest.
A NATO spokesman downplayed comments by the US envoy to Macedonia who seemed to suggest that Alliance forces could remain in the fragile Balkan state to protect unarmed monitors after the current NATO mission pulls out.
"Task Force Harvest is here for a specific limited mission," said NATO spokesman Mark Laity, adding that the NATO mission, which began last week, has a mandate and that ends at a certain point."
He was reacting after US envoy to Macedonia James Pardew was quoted as having said in a media interview that more civilian monitors are expected to be deployed after NATO pulls out.
"They would not be armed and that does raise the question of whether there is adequate security for them, and then whether there should be an extension of the military mandate," he said, quoted by Mr Laity.
But the Alliance spokesman said Mr Pardew had been misinterpreted. "There has been an over-extended interpretation of what the ambassador said... He had no intention to speak about the extension of a mandate."
NATO began collecting ethnic Albanian rebels' weapons last Monday, under an Western-brokered accord signed on August 13 granting strengthened rights to Albanians in return for the rebels' giving up their weapons.
But the West was alarmed this weekend when a parliamentary debate on amending Macedonia's constitution was suspended for two days by the assembly's hardline speaker.
Under the tight schedule set out in the peace accord, the legal amendments must be adopted by September, the day after the 30-day NATO mission ends on September 26.
Macedonian authorities have already highlighted the "security vacuum" which risks occurring after NATO pulls out, and western governments admit that the international community must remain present in the country.
AFP