Macedonian deal on despite violence

The army has suffered its worst losses since the fighting started

A peace agreement for Macedonia will be signed on Monday after ethnic Albanian parties approved the deal, western mediators have said.

The news comes despite the temporary withdrawal of a major Macedonian party from peace talks earlier in the day, and the deaths of 10 Macedonian soldiers in a rebel attack.

The BBC correspondent in Macedonia says most of the parties involved in the negotiations are believed to have put their signatures to a draft deal.

The talks had seemed on the verge of collapse, but the EU envoy, Francois Leotard, now says there will be a formal signing ceremony on Monday.

The announcement comes hours after the soldiers were killed as they drove in convoy along a motorway between the capital, Skopje, and the country's second-biggest city, Tetovo. Government officials called it an ambush.

In Tetovo itself, eyewitness reports said the southern part of the city had fallen to the rebels.

And in Skopje, hundreds of Macedonians were reported to be gathering to protest at the soldiers' deaths and at the announcement of the deal.

In the past western mediators have several times believed the two sides were close to clinching a deal, but each time a new problem has emerged.

This is, however, the first time the parties have put pen to paper and signed up to a political agreement.

'Rebel offensive'

The military convoy was attacked on the motorway near the village of Grupcin.

A fierce gun battle was reported to have followed the attack, with rebels and soldiers dug in on different sides of the motorway.

The deaths, of two officers and eight reservists, are the highest number of casualties the Macedonians have suffered in a single day since the fighting began.

The rebels reportedly used rocket-propelled grenades and the army responded with tanks and helicopter gunships.

By the evening sources said calm had been restored.

We condemn all acts of violence and call on all parties to refrain from any violations of the ceasefire

International mediators' statement

The interior ministry imposed a curfew in the southern Macedonian town of Prilep, the hometown of some of the soldiers killed in the attack.

Reports said ethnic-Albanian-owned shops were looted and a mosque was burned in the town in retaliation for the attack.

Ceasefire violation

In Tetovo itself a journalist with the news agency AFP reported gunfire and loud explosions. Other agencies said rebels had occupied houses near a military barracks.

Reports from Tetovo say an ethnic-Albanian civilian was killed and two Macedonians including a three-year-old girl were wounded in shootings in the city.

Guerrillas from the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) were seen searching Macedonians' houses in the south of the city.

They had also set up a roadblock and were searching cars heading south towards the town of Gostivar.

The fighting is the heaviest seen for a month and constitutes a major violation of a Nato-brokered ceasefire.

On Tuesday, five ethnic Albanians died in a police raid in a suburb of Skopje, further heightening tensions.

Negotiations to the end

Details of the deal are not yet known and observers say more negotiations will be needed before the final signing on Monday.

However the deal is expected to cover the issues of the status of the Albanian language, the ethnic composition of the police force and the disarmament of the rebels which have been the main focus of the negotiations.

Nato has pledged to deploy 3,500 troops to oversee rebel disarmament once a political agreement is in place and a general ceasefire is holding.

But many observers still fear that there is a lot of room for things to go wrong before the final signing on Monday.

And the actual implementation of any deal will bring problems of its own.