Macedonia's Slav and Albanian leaders are having talks today on constitutional reforms they hope will defuse an ethnic Albanian uprising threatening to break the country in two.
But the main ethnic Albanian party in the fractious emergency coalition, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA), said a proposal on reforms presented to the parties by international envoys Mr Francois Leotard and Mr James Pardew on Saturday did not go far enough.
"We have yet to give our official response, and our experts are examining the proposed text," said DPA parliamentary group head Mr Zamir Dika.
"But the text will probably have to be reviewed, since the proposals are undoubtedly not sufficient to solve the crisis," he said.
The draft framework was given to Macedonia President Mr Boris Trajkovski, as well as other Macedonian Slav and Albanian political leaders.
The talks aim to capitalise on the uneasy peace introduced by an open-ended ceasefire brokered by NATO which came into force at midnight on Thursday.
Accepted by the Macedonian government and the self-styled National Liberation Army, it aims to end a five-month rebel uprising that has brought the multi-ethnic state to the brink of civil war and displaced more than 100,000 people.
Progress in constitutional reform - a central demand of ethnic Albanian politicians and guerrillas - is seen as the key to whether the ceasefire holds and political dialogue can bring about a lasting peace settlement.
AFP