NATO hopes swift progress on resettling refugees can counter Macedonian fears that its latest Balkan peace mission will be merely cosmetic.
The Western alliance has set a target of more than 3,000 weapons to be collected from a guerrilla force believed to number at least the same figure and the Macedonian government is likely to accept the totals despite misgivings, diplomats said.
The alliance's Balkan troubleshooter Mr Pieter Feith sought to reassure a deeply sceptical public that NATO had persuaded National Liberation Army (NLA) guerrillas to pull back from a contested road in the volatile Tetovo region, declaring: "There will be good opportunities in coming days for displaced (Macedonians) to return to villages in that area."
Angry Macedonians who fled NLA occupation have denied NATO access to a road vital to supplying its 40,000 peacekeepers in neighbouring Kosovo for the past week, demanding a more serious crackdown on rebels than the alliance is willing to countenance.
Ignoring pressure to end the protest, its organiser vowed to resist efforts to shift a barrier of barbed wire, piles of earth and articulated trucks unless the West met a long list of demands and ensured that guerrillas freed Macedonian prisoners.
Feith said the Red Cross had new details about 13 missing Macedonians, but was unable to announce more concrete progress.
"There are good hopes we can get firm commitments from the Albanian side about an early release," he told reporters.
Although the peace agreement which was a precondition for NATO's "Operation Essential Harvest" outlines plans for more than 125,000 refugees, of whom at least half are Macedonian, to be resettled quickly, it will be tough to make this sustainable.
Critics say NATO's mandate is not long or robust enough to overcome ethnic distrust and enmity and no other credible force has been assembled to fill the vacuum if the 4,500 troops depart.
Most Macedonians believe NATO will gather no more than a fraction of the guns flooding the region, leaving their fragile 10-year-old country at the mercy of Albanian expansionism.
Many Macedonians view the entire peace process as flawed at best and a capitulation to "Albanian terrorism" at worst. They remain to be convinced and think NATO is missing the point after it backed Kosovo Albanian guerrillas against Serb oppression.
"The NLA is a Western creation," declared Mr Todor Petrov, who is coordinating the blockade on the road to Kosovo. "NATO should ensure that this monster it spawned is now killed off."