SKOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonian government troops attacked ethnic Albanian rebels with tanks and helicopter gunships on Friday, shattering an 11-day cease-fire and threatening talks aimed at averting civil war.
The attack against rebel positions in Aracinovo and Nikustak followed allegations by President Boris Trajkovski that ethnic Albanian politicians were making demands the Slav-led government could not accept.
The offensive appeared aimed at pressuring the ethnic Albanians into accepting Trajkovski's peace peace plan, which calls for an amnesty for most rebels who disarm voluntarily and including more ethnic Albanians in state bodies and institutions.
The most contentious issue has been the peace plan's removal of references to ethnicity or religion from the constitution and the addition of Albanian as a second state language. As much as one-third of the Balkan country's 2 million people are ethnic Albanian.
The European Union has endorsed the plan, and NATO has promised troops to help supervise disarming the rebels if the two sides can reach an agreement. EU security chief Javier Solana was expected to rush back to the Balkan country of 2 million late Friday or early Saturday in an attempt to revive negotiations.
But the surge of fighting, ending a cease-fire meant to improve the atmosphere surrounding the talks, threatened to push the negotiators even farther apart.
"The talks are in a critical position because the Macedonians have violated what they earlier pledged to fulfill — a halt to the fighting while the talks go on," said Zehir Bekteshi, a spokesman for the ethnic Albanian Party for Democratic Prosperity.
A rebel leader known as Commander Hohxa promised to fight back.
"I'm warning the government if they want war they're going to get one," he said by telephone from Aracinovo. "We will defend ourselves."
The leadership of Macedonia's Slavs said the military offensive was aimed at stopping the country from being carved up.
Col. Blagoja Markovski, the Macedonian army spokesman, said the action was undertaken because the town of Aracinovo was endangered by "armed Albanians who have forced civilians to flee and (who) threatened to attack the capital and jeopardize the stability of the country." Four soldiers were injured, state television reported.
On the road near Aracinovo, Macedonian troops advanced about 700 yards to the outskirts of the Skopje suburb. Tanks and armored personnel carriers maneuvered in the area while the Macedonian army lobbed artillery shells into the town. The rebels responded with gunfire.
Refugees were on the move again, pushing the total this year to about 50,000, said Astrid van Genderen Stort, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency in Kosovo, the largely ethnic Albanian region of Yugoslavia.
Some of the 300 people who arrived in Kosovo on Friday reported ill treatment by Macedonian security forces, she said. Later in the day, other agency officials reported that the number of arrivals on Friday reached some 3,000, including mainly refugees from the Skopje area.
Central European foreign ministers meeting in Milan, Italy, meanwhile, expressed fears Friday that escalating violence in Macedonia may spread to Kosovo and other Balkan areas.
Ministers of the 17-member Central European Initiative, which includes Macedonia, Yugoslavia and Albania, called for renewed peace efforts while ruling out a military solution to the Macedonian crisis.
In Norfolk, Va., visiting Lord Robertson, the secretary-general of NATO on Friday urged an end to fighting in Macedonia and said that NATO troops would not support "the slicing up of this country on ethnic lines."