SKOPJE, Macedonia — Two European observers monitoring a cease-fire in Macedonia's conflict and their translator were killed after their vehicle apparently hit a land mine and tumbled into a ravine, officials said today.
"The vehicle was blown up by a mine. We are reasonably certain that this was a powerful mine explosion," Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bjorn Berge said in Oslo.
But a spokeswoman for the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Diana Madunic, said it was still unclear if the vehicle hit a mine or if it was involved in an accident on the mountain road.
A Slovak Defense Ministry statement identified those killed as Lubomir Orsag, a lieutenant colonel in the Slovak army; Norwegian Bjarte Gundersen; and their ethnic Albanian translator, Valon Sadik.
The three disappeared Thursday afternoon near the city of Tetovo, and their vehicle was found Friday morning in a ravine seven miles southwest of Tetovo between the villages of Novo Selo and Mazdraca, said Macedonian Defense Ministry spokesman Marjan Djurovski.
A Defense Ministry statement said a strong explosion had been heard about the time the vehicle disappeared. "The mission's vehicle is thought to have hit a land mine planted by ethnic Albanian terrorists."
Meanwhile, talks between Macedonian and ethnic Albanian leaders aimed at preventing a full-scale civil war have stalled following the government's rejection of a Western-backed peace plan, but experts from both sides were to continue talks today.
Macedonian leaders earlier in the week rejected a plan backed by two Western envoys that would have made Albanian an official second language alongside the Macedonian tongue spoken by the majority of the population, among other concessions to ethnic Albanians.
Ethnic Albanian political leaders pulled out of high-level talks Thursday. Following intense bargaining that included U.S. envoy James Pardew and European Union envoy Francois Leotard, President Boris Trajkovski said both sides had agreed to send experts to a negotiating session Friday.
However, Zehir Bekteshi of the influential Party for Democratic Prosperity said Friday that Albanians were reluctant to relegate talks to "a level from four months ago."
"We want dialogue to continue, ... but with two envoys and political leaders," he said, adding that the party's leadership would decide later Friday whether to participate in the newest talks.
The deadlock has raised concerns that a cease-fire brokered earlier this month by NATO could break down and full-scale fighting resume.
Ethnic Albanian militants launched their insurgency against government forces in February in a campaign to demand more rights. Majority Macedonians say the ethnic Albanians already enjoy enough protection under the constitution, and allege that their struggle is aimed at carving up the country.
Arben Xhaferi, the main ethnic Albanian official, said Thursday that Macedonian leaders "are continuously provoking a continuation of fighting."
"Macedonia would be the only case in history where a war will start because of linguistic disputes," Xhaferi said.
Earlier this week, Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski called the Western-backed peace plan a "blatant violation" of Macedonia's affairs.
NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, postponed a trip to Skopje planned for Thursday.