On the eve of a visit by Western European security leaders, an accord was yesterday signed with ethnic Albanian rebels under which they would pull back from positions in north-west Macedonia they had taken this month, a NATO spokesman in Skopje said.
Earlier, a private Macedonian television channel reported the rebel political representative, Mr Ali Ahmeti, and the NATO envoy, Mr Pieter Feith, signed a deal under which the rebels would withdraw from around the town of Tetovo, the focus of recent clashes, and from parts of the road leading to the town of Jazince.
But hours after the announcement of the deal, one Albanian rebel commander who will have to enforce it, said it was unworkable.
Comdt Leka, said his National Liberation Army (NLA) men moved into villages on a road out of Tetovo because Macedonian residents had been given guns.
"It is impossible to pull back because Macedonian paramilitaries are too close. They are waiting for us to move to attack us," Comdt Leka said. Fighting broke out for an hour yesterday evening in Tetovo, witnesses said.
Strong detonations and bursts of gunfire could be heard in the town, witnesses said, adding that there was also exchanges of fire around the city stadium.
Meanwhile, the Macedonian private TV A1 reported "Albanian terrorists opened fire on the vehicles on the road" between Tetovo and the capital, Skopje, adding there were no victims of the fighting.
Some 8,000 people fled their homes in Tetovo and its surroundings following the latest clashes.
The road was packed during the day by Macedonian Slavs in the wake of fighting that erupted on Monday and Tuesday in which two people were killed, one of them a 12-year-old girl.
Some 31 people were injured in more than six hours of clashes in the town and its surroundings.
The violence came a day ahead of the visit by the NATO Secretary General, Lord George Robertson, the EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, and the president of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) aimed to press for a return to a ceasefire and a resumption of political negotiations.
"We hope to re-focus the minds of both parties," Lord Robertson told a news conference in Brussels. He described the situation in Macedonia as "critical", calling on "all those involved to demonstrate leadership by taking the right decisions to follow the path to peace and not to war."
In Skopje, the Macedonian President, Mr Boris Trajkovski, warned that the country "will never allow ethnic cleansing on its territory".
Mr Trajkovski, vowing co-operation with the international community, nevertheless warned that if peace "efforts fail, the Macedonian security forces will use all their potential to protect citizens and their property and destroy terrorist groups," as Skopje refers to the NLA.