STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- American Albanians Lobby Powell Over Macedonia WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) on Tuesday reassured a group of U.S. supporters of ethnic Albanians mired in a conflict in Macedonia that U.S. intentions to engage with Russia in the Balkans did not mean a policy shift, the group said after the meeting. Russians have historic links with the Slav peoples in the region and supported former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) and ethnic Albanians see them as biased against their cause of promoting autonomy for their people in Balkan states. President Bush (news - web sites) after his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) last Saturday said the United States and Russia could work together to try to stop ethnic strife in Macedonia. ``One of the issues we raised with him (Powell) was the concern we have about Russian involvement in the region, Russian leadership role in the region,'' Ilir Zherka, president of the National Albanian American Council, said. ``Whenever we hear Russia and the Balkans in the same sentence, it makes us very nervous,'' Zherka told reporters outside the State Department after the meeting. He said Powell stressed that the dialogue with Russia on Macedonia would not mean Washington and its European allies would change their policy. They demand an end to armed insurrection while pressing for political changes to give ethnic groups more of a say in their own affairs. Ethnic Albanian guerrillas with backing from Kosovo began operating in neighboring Macedonia earlier this year, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. Macedonia's politicians are struggling to come up with proposals to persuade the guerrillas to lay down their arms, which could allow NATO (news - web sites) to send in a force to oversee the cease-fire. Ethnic Albanians are demanding changes to Macedonia's constitution. Leaders of the Slav ethnic majority balk at changing the constitution's preamble which labels Albanians one of several minorities in a country of ``the Macedonian people.'' Rep. Eliot Engel (news - bio - voting record), a New York Democrat who co-chairs the Albanian issues caucus in the House of Representatives, said Powell reassured him that the United States would remain engaged in the region. ``We talked about the insurgency and I expressed my belief that if the government of Macedonia dealt with the Albanian concerns, the insurgency would dry up,'' Engel said. Engel said the United States should not pull peacekeeping troops out of the region and that a proposal for NATO peacekeeping troops in Macedonia ``could be a very positive thing'' under certain circumstances. Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
