British troops meet rebels over arms surrender under peace deal

The liaison team from the 16 Air Assault Brigade drove to Nikustak, a rebel-held village along the front line about 10 miles from the capital, Skopje.

Armed members of the rebels' military police accompanied Captain Gareth Hicks up a rubble-strewn street lined with houses badly damaged from shelling to the rebel headquarters guarded by fighters armed with assault rifles and knives.

''Today, all I want to do is introduce myself and meet everybody,'' said unarmed Captain Hicks when asked about the purpose of his visit.

''When I come back with a clear understanding of the whole picture, I can talk about the actual politics involved.''

Commander Adashi, who heads the rebels' 114th Brigade based in Nikustak, the site of heavy fighting over the last two months, assured Captain Hicks that he understood that his fighters were expected to surrender their weapons under the peace agreement.

''I believe there will be no problems. We will co-operate and guarantee your security on our side. But I can't say for the other side,'' he said, referring to Macedonian government forces.

The meeting, however, showed that mistrust between Macedonia's rival factions still runs high six months after the militants launched an insurgency they

said was aimed at winning greater rights for minority ethnic Albanians.

The rebels demanded a video-tape from a Macedonian TV crew accompanying the liaison team and barred the crew from entering the village.

Later, as the liaison team left the village, two shots rang out. Rebels assured the British

officers the shooting was from a practice firing range in the village.

Such meetings are considered crucial groundwork to ensure both sides are clear on procedures for weapons collection. Similar contacts will be made with Macedonian security forces deployed along front lines across the north of the country.

Macedonian government officials have expressed scepticism at the peace plan, suggesting it could fall apart. ''It can fail if there is no clear, effective and efficient effort by Nato to disarm the Albanian terrorists,'' Ilinka Mitreva, foreign minister, said yesterday.

But in a sign that the government is committed to the accord, the defence ministry announced that the army would pull back from areas where rebels would turn in their guns. An advance party of about 400 Nato troops is working to determine whether a shaky ceasefire which began last week is durable enough to allow the deployment of the full force. The alliance is expected to make a decision on the force sometime this week.

Sporadic violence in the country has kept tensions high, with fighting reported overnight near the village of Poroj on the outskirts of Tetovo, Macedonia's second city.

Nato's top commander in Europe will brief the alliance's ruling council today on the situation and the advisability of deploying a full 3500 member force to collect rebel weapons.

US General Joseph Ralston was in Skopje yesterday to make an assessment of the ceasefire. Nato officials said he would brief the North Atlantic Council, made up of ambassadors from the alliance's 19 member countries, on his findings, but that the council probably would not make a decision on sending in the rest of the military mission until later this week.

Security forces would be expected to pull back from areas around the collection points to create a ''friendly environment for the rebels' disarmament'', said a Macedonian defence source, speaking anonymously.

The Macedonians fear the rebels might ''use the opportunity to sweep in and take control over the area cleared by the military and police'', the source said.

Still the defence ministry announcement signaled willingness on the government side to create an atmosphere permitting Nato deployment.

The ''redistribution'' would permit Nato to ''carry on unhindered its action of disarming the terrorists'', the defence ministry statement said. As part of the move, military helicopters and airplanes would cease overflying areas where hand-overs of rebel weapons were scheduled to take place, it said.

Hours before the ceasefire violation near Poroj, Ali Ahmeti, the National Liberation Army political leader, insisted his rebel group would surrender all its weapons and disband.

''We will give up all our arms, because we will no longer have any need for them,'' he said.

The rebels say their struggle, which began six months ago, is meant to give more rights for minority ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. The government says the insurgents are fighting for territory.

Ahmeti's news conference, which signalled the rebel leader's first foray into public life, outraged the interior minister, Ljube Boskovski.

''He is nothing but a criminal responsible for crimes against humanity, committed against his people,'' Boskovski said in a statement on Macedonian state television. ''Ali Ahmeti must be brought to the Macedonian independent courts and judged for crimes against humanity.''-AP