Bujar Osmani

The conclusion of negotiations between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is being held up by disagreements over the "interpretation" of the legal documents and not over principle, according to senior ranking officials in Skopje.

UNMIK's Media Observer is reporting this on Friday, citing Pristina-based Albanian language newspaper Koha.

The conference is set to take place in Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the report continued - and Tirana and Skopje are boycotting it "because of exclusion of Kosovo from the event."

The deputy prime minister of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) expressed optimism on Thursday over renewed efforts to resolve a decades-long dispute with neighboring Greece over the Balkan country's name that has kept it out of NATO.

FYROM (Macedonian) Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani has met with Greek government officials in Athens in an effort to settle a decades-old dispute over the name Macedonia.

"We are committed to finding a solution in this six months," said Osmani after the talks on January 9.

The main ruling party, the Social Democrats, SDSM and its ethnic Albanian junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, have confirmed that they are on the verge of making official their deal to support each other's candidates for the local elections on October 15.

FYROM’s new reformist government faces it first big test after a small coalition partner, the DPA – Movement for Reforms, said it would quit the Social Democrat-led government if it fails to adopt a law extending the official use of Albanian by early September.

Experts say the possible resignation of ethnic Albanian ministers from Macedonia's provisional government would increase the "pressure" for the formation of a new government but would not necessarily resolve the current crisis.

The leader of the social democrat SDSM party in Macedonia is to ask the President for a mandate to form a government after shaking hands with ethnic Albanian party DUI, local media report.

At a meeting on Saturday, the SDSM has unanimously picked Zoran Zaev as the mandate bearer candidate.

At a meeting which took place on Saturday afternoon, the party's central presidency formally nominated Zaev to run for prime minister. Zaev will go on to claim the mandate to form a new government from the head of state, President Gjorge Ivanov.

More than two months after the December election, the issue of Albanian language demands remains the main stumbling block between the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, in their talks on forming a new government.