RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 235, Part II, 16 December 2004

MACEDONIAN ALBANIAN PARTIES RESUME NEGOTIATIONS WITH ARMED ALBANIAN
GROUP... Arben Xhaferi and Menduh Thaci, who are the leaders of the
opposition Democratic Party of the Albanians (PDSH), have resumed
talks with the inhabitants of the village of Kondovo outside Skopje
to find a political solution to the presence of an armed Albanian
group controlling that village, "Utrinski vesnik" reported on 16
December (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7, 14, and 15 December 2004 and
"RFE/RL Balkan Report," 5 and 10 December 2004). Alluding to
President Branko Crvenkovski's recent statement that the time for
negotiations is over, Thaci said on 15 December that he still
believes a political solution is possible. In related news, Ali
Ahmeti, who is the chairman of the governing ethnic Albanian
Democratic Union for Integration (BDI), said that he, too, believes
that the Kondovo problem must be resolved through talks. UB

...AS MISSILE REPORTS FIZZLE. A spokesman for the Macedonian
Interior Ministry on 14 December denied recent reports in the
Albanian media that the final destination of three Yugoslav-made
Strela 2-M shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles was Kondovo,
according to "Utrinski vesnik." The missiles were seized and four
smugglers arrested by the Albanian police outside Tirana earlier this
week after entering Albania from Montenegro, whose police worked
closely with their Albanian counterparts to intercept the contraband,
Reuters reported. Albanian police officials said that the smugglers
paid $130,000 for the missiles in Bosnia, adding that they were
intended for transshipment to Macedonia. UB/PM