Valery Asriyan, RIA Novosti analyst

The situation in Macedonia has deteriorated again. The Front for Albanian National Unification, under whose cover the illegal Albanian National Army (ANA) is operating, has announced emergency mobilisation of its units. Albanians say they were forced to do this because the Macedonian government refused to react to the ANA ultimatum on the withdrawal of all security forces from Kumanovo.

But the question is: Could the Macedonian government react differently to such an ultimatum? Agreement to honour the demand would have amounted to withdrawal of national jurisdiction from a part of the country's territory. The example of Kosovo, which Albanians actually tore away from Serbia with NATO assistance, is too fresh and convincing to disregard it.

The ANA ultimatum and mobilisation order mean that the Ohrid Agreement signed by Albanian fighters and Macedonian authorities two years ago turned out to be a fragile and unreliable instrument, just as many experts had predicted. It did not and could not restore peace and international accord in Macedonia because the goal of one of the sides - Albanians - was to split the country. They accepted peace only as a tactical manoeuvre allowing them to regroup for continued "struggle for independence."

That struggle began in the spring of 2001, when the Albanian minority of Macedonia (or rather, its most aggressive part nurturing separatist plans), inspired by the example of Kosovo, took up arms to fight for independence and secession of the north-western part of Macedonia that borders on Kosovo. ANA units, well armed and replenished with members of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), waged hostilities against the Macedonian security forces. When the Macedonian government decided to use regular army against the rebels, NATO interfered in the process and actually tied the hands of President Boris Trajkovski.

It was at NATO initiative that the Ohrid Agreement was signed. Under it, the Macedonian authorities made major concessions to Albanians. Though the Albanian minority had never been discriminated in Macedonia, the agreement granted it additional rights. Five Albanians were put on the Macedonian cabinet as ministers and Albanian was granted the status of an official language in Albanian regions and actually became a second state language. The number of Albanians in police units was increased and the method of making parliamentary decisions was changed to take into account Albanians' demands. All of these changes were reflected in the amended Macedonian Constitution.

In short, yielding to NATO and US pressure, Macedonia took actions that can eventually turn it into a federal state of two ethnic groups, something which Albanians have long demanded and which President Trajkovski resisted, as he saw this, with good reason, as a threat to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Macedonia.

The thing is that the Macedonian authorities had to announce an amnesty for those who had fought government troops. The amnesty was to be preceded by the liquidation of Albanian bandit groups and surrender of their weapons, which the NATO group deployed in Macedonia undertook to supervise. But "disarmament" was carried out just as in Kosovo, where nearly all KLA members kept their weapons and the KLA was not dissolved but changed its name to the Civil Defence Corps.

In Macedonia, the ANA, now called the Front for Albanian National Unification, kept its weapons and its fighters, after a brief respite, resumed their actions by presenting the aforementioned ultimatum to the Macedonian government. As you see, the policy of appeasing extremists in Kosovo and Macedonia did not do any good.

"The trouble is that the USA and NATO put their stakes in the Balkans on Albanian separatism," says Prof. Vladimir Volkov, a prominent Balkans expert and director of the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He told this correspondent that the NATO leadership probably sees the dangers of Albanian extremism for the Balkans and the rest of Europe but does not want to admit this. And it does not do anything to amend the situation. Why? Because the bloc, which used the Albanian card as the trump in the game against Yugoslavia of Milosevic, cannot retrace its steps to disavow its actions and admit the failure of its Balkans policy that destabilised the situation in the region, said the scientist. Besides, NATO is still entertaining hopes of using Albanian separatism for putting pressure on maverick Balkan countries.

According to Volkov, if NATO continues to nurture Albanian extremism and allows the creation of a two-subject Macedonian state, the outcome of regional developments will be easily predictable. In a few years Macedonian Albania will announce secession from Macedonia and, joining forces with the Kosovo, Greek and Montenegrin Albanians, attempt to create a new state. In fact, it is an old plan of creating Greater Albania, which clearly poses serious threat to the Balkans.

NATO must decide now. Either it closes its eyes to the ethnic re-carving of the Balkans (which nationalists of all stripes want), or works to stabilise the situation in the Balkans with due respect for the interests of all regional nations. The latter can be done if NATO accepts the Russian initiative, under which all Balkan countries must sign an agreement on the mutual recognition of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of existing borders.