Fresh Crisis Talks Expected in Macedonia

Macedonia's warring political leaders hold a new meeting on Monday in the hope of reaching an agreement on a transition government that will lead the country into early elections due to take place by next April at the latest.

The key question is whether Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE leader Nikola Gruevski will step down ahead of the polls.

But the two key players, Gruevski and opposition Social Democrats leader Zoran Zaev, have refused to shift their positions on the question positions. On several occasions in the past few days, Gruevski said he is not stepping down, as the opposition has demanded.

Also expected at the talks are Ali Ahmeti, the head of the junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, and the head of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians.

The EU and American ambassadors to Macedonia, Aivo Orav and Jess Baily, are expected to be present too.

Although it was an option, the EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn is not going to Skopje to mediate at the talks. He said however that he would closely monitor what is happening.

The crisis in Macedonia centres on claims of mass illegal surveillance. The opposition accuses Gruevski of masterminding the surveillance of over 20,000 people and is demanding that he and his government resign.

Gruevski has insisted that compromising tapes of officials' conversations, which have been released in batches by the opposition since February, were "created" by unnamed foreign intelligence services and given to the opposition to destabilise the country.

The tapes point to election fraud, abuse of the justice system and media and suggest that the government covered up responsibility for the murder of a young man by a policeman.