A retreat by ethnic Albanian guerrillas from the areas they have controlled for the past three weeks in northwestern Macedonia was underway and no incidents were reported, various observers said on Thursday.
"I was told that the withdrawal is underway," NATO Secretary General George Robertson told reporters as he arrived at Skopje airport on a mission with the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana to help breathe life back into a tattered July 5 ceasefire and revive stalled peace talks.
NATO spokesman Barry Johnson earlier also told AFP the withdrawal was "underway". He said no incidents had been reported.
"Until now everything has gone well and according to plan. They have started returning to the positions they occupied before the ceasefire (on July 5)," a source close to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Skopje, added.
Under the agreement, brokered by NATO special envoy Pieter Feith, the retreat of the rebels of the National Liberation Army (NLA) had been scheduled to start around 6 am (0400 GMT) on Thursday and be completed within seven hours.
"The withdrawal is continuing, there are no incidents and everything is calm," the source said around 10 am.
NATO chief Robertson urged the full respect of the agreement.
"I hope that they will recognise that they have commitments that they have made and everything here has got to be based on trust," he said.
OSCE teams in Macedonia were charged with observing the NLA retreat from a number of villages and roads around the northwestern town Tetovo.
The rebels' political representative Ali Ahmeti signed the accord on Wednesday.
Under the accord all rebel checkpoints on the road are to be dismantled, while all paramilitary forces are to pull back 500 metres (yards) from the last house in all the villages controlled by the guerrillas since July 5.
The withdrawal was a condition of the Macedonian government for it to continue respecting the ceasefire and to refrain from further violence.
Although Johnson said late on Wednesday that the accord was signed between the representatives of the government and the NLA rebels, sources close to the Skopje authorities insisted the agreement was sealed solely between NATO and Albanian "terrorists".
Macedonian defence ministry spokesman Marjan Djurovski told AFP: "(The) terrorists are withdrawing globally and the condition for the return of the population are to be established."
Skopje authorities said that some 8,000 people, mostly Macedonians, had fled fighting in a number of villages around Tetovo, situated on the road towards the neighbouring UN-administrated Yugoslav province of Kosovo.
Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski promised the displaced they would be able to return to their homes later on Thursday.
Djurovski said the rebels' retreat was marred "with small problems".
"The checkpoints are still not dismantled but we work on displacing them," he said.
In Tetovo itself, the scene of the latest clashes, the situation was calm on Thursday, although rebels carrying kalashnikov rifles were driving around the surrounding roads.
About thirty NLA rebels were still present at a checkpoint near the local stadium in Tetovo, just at the entrance to the town, on the road towards Jazince.
Since the July 5 ceasefire accord, the rebels have erected several checkpoints around the town and nearby villages -- SKOPJE (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
