NATO ambassadors are expected to vote later Wednesday on setting up the command headquarters in Macedonia of an intervention force tasked with disarming ethnic Albanian rebels, a NATO spokesman said.
Envoys from the 19 member-countries were examining a proposal to set up the headquarters and were to vote on the issue during a session to be held later in the day, said the spokesman.
Under a peace accord signed Monday, NATO is to deploy 3,500 troops in Macedonia who will collect weapons voluntarily surrendered by ethnic Albanian rebels who have been waging a six-month insurgency.
In Skopje, Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski formally set in motion the process of implementing the peace accord when he asked parliament to hold a session to approve its provisions.
"We are encouraged by what has happened (in Macedonia) thus far but we are in a very dynamic, fast-moving situation," said the spokesman.
"Full deployment of Essential Harvest can only take place once all the conditions have been fulfilled," he reiterated, referring to the operation code-named Essential Harvest.
These include respecting the ceasefire and setting out a precise plan, with the consent of the rebels, for the collection of weapons -- BRUSSELS (AFP)
