March 5, 2001
Albanian separatists and Macedonian troops were involved in a three-hour clash on the border with Kosovo, according to the Macedonian Government. It said the exchange of gun and mortar fire took place around two villages controlled by the insurgents, including Tanusevci, where three Macedonian soldiers were killed on Sunday.
The government has been holding emergency talks and on Wednesday will seek backing at a meeting of the UN Security Council for its demand that K-For, the Nato-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, create a buffer zone along the border.
It has already received statements of support from Nato, which uses Macedonia as a staging post for its troops in Kosovo, but BBC correspondent Paul Wood says it is not clear whether the alliance will agree to Skopje's demand to create a buffer zone.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgjan Kerim said the buffer zone would halt the supply of weapons to the rebels. Macedonia closed its border with Kosovo after the clashes and sent in extra police and army units.
The guerrillas are from a new group - the National Liberation Army. They say they take their volunteers from Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority and are planning to wage a Kosovo-style guerrilla war inside Macedonia.
Albanian unease
Macedonia has warned that the escalating violence could destabilise the whole region. About one-third of Macedonia's population is ethnic Albanian, culturally close to the Kosovo-Albanian majority in Kosovo. The government's discussions are already provoking unease among Albanian politicians, correspondents say.
Mendu Saatchi, a senior figure in the Albanian Democratic Party, part of the ruling coalition, says his party has been excluded from the government's talks. Mr Saatchi told the BBC that such an approach risked bolstering support for militants.
Sporadic fighting
The guerrillas have been using a 1km wide exclusion zone along the border to evade both the Nato-led K-For peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and the Macedonian army. Our correspondent says the Macedonians and K-For will find it difficult to stamp out the group, and any forceful action could simply bring it new volunteers.
Sporadic fighting has been reported for the past two weeks between Macedonian forces and the guerrillas. The rebels have been in Tanusevci for weeks and in parts of the southern Serbian buffer zone next to Kosovo for months.
