SKOPJE, Macedonia — NATO troops in Macedonia prepared Saturday for a fact-finding mission that will determine whether the Western alliance sends in a bigger force to gather weapons from Albanian rebels as part of a peace settlement.
NATO is keen to avoid being sucked into another lengthy engagement in the former Yugoslavia and believes a lightning 30-day mission can stabilize a shaky peace deal agreed upon a week ago by the ethnic Albanian minority and Macedonian majority.
The mostly British vanguard of about 400 was expected to be in place by Saturday evening. Smaller teams will head off from Skopje into rebel-controlled territory in the north early this week to make contact with the fighters.
But there are doubts whether "Operation Essential Harvest" can succeed in disarming the rebel National Liberation Army, which has waged a six-month campaign against Macedonian forces and brought Europe to the brink of another Balkan war.
NATO commanders warned on Saturday that a cease-fire between guerrillas and Macedonian forces was not yet stable enough for the full mission, which would involve some 3,500 troops.
"What we have to convince ourselves of is that people are committed to the cease-fire," said Brigadier Barney White-Spunner, British commander of the advance group.
NATO deferred a decision on full deployment on Friday, opting to await reports from a Monday visit by its supreme commander Gen. Joseph Ralston and from White-Spunner. The first contingents of British, French and Czech soldiers, a few dozen strong, hit the ground on Friday just hours after gunbattles around the volatile Tetovo region. Albanian residents of Tetovo reported sniping by Macedonian troops on Saturday and said an 18-year-old guerrilla had died in the morning from wounds suffered in Friday's firefights.
In a further sign of pitfalls ahead, Macedonian nationalists blockaded the road used by NATO to supply its vast peacekeeping force in neighbouring Kosovo, vowing to deny troops access unless the West met a long list of largely unpalatable demands.
The alliance is not popular among many Macedonians, who accuse it of failing to stop guerrillas and weapons flooding over the border from Kosovo to bolster the NLA.
But NATO officials have taken heart from relative calm across the country in the last few days and from an agreement by NLA last week to lay down arms.
"Our impression is that the vast majority of people in this country really want the Ohrid agreement to work," White-Spunner said, referring to the lakeside resort where the Macedonian government and Albanian parties agreed a political reform deal.
But the milestone agreement, which gives the Albanian language limited official status and provides for a larger role for Albanians in the police force among other things, could yet be derailed by Macedonian nationalists in parliament.
And despite the provision for a broad amnesty to rebels who disarm, the Macedonian media have treated the accords with scepticism, with few signs of the spirit of reconciliation needed to make either work in the long run.