(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Internationally brokered talks between warring leaders in Macedonia on Tuesday in Skopje broke up without concrete signs of a breakthrough. They were the third round of internationally-brokered talks aimed at finding a way out of the country's ongoing political turmoil.
The discussions ended with few details about what had been discussed.
Opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev said after the talks that the leaders were still attempting to iron out differences about the "framework" of the further, more substantial negotiations, that according to him must end with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's resignation.
Zaev said he expected more substantial negotiations next week when another meeting is set to take place.
Gruevski avoided comment after the summit, while members of his team confirmed that the talks had not progressed much from the last time.
Tuesday's talks in Skopje were crisis facilitated by the US ambassador, Jess Baily, and the EU ambassador, Aivo Orav.
They brought together Prime Minister and VMRO DPMNE leader Gruevski, opposition Social Democrat leader Zaev, the head of the junior ruling party, Ali Ahmeti, of the Democratic Union for Integration, and Menduh Thaci, of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA.
The hope was that negotiations might begin resolve a crisis caused by opposition claims that Gruevski ordered the surveillance of over 20,000 people.
The claim is based on tapes of official conversations that the opposition has been releasing in installments since February.
Gruevski says the tapes were "created" by unnamed foreign intelligence services and given to the opposition to destabilise the country.
The Prime Minister has ignored opposition calls for him to resign, but says he is open to talks on other issues such as reforms in key sectors including electoral rules, the judiciary and the media.
The tapes appear to reveal the government's direct involvement in election fraud, abuse of the justice system and media and even suggest it covered up the murder of a young man by a police officer.
The meeting comes after ten hours of EU-mediated talks in Strasbourg between Gruevski and Zaev ended last week without a breakthrough.
The Strasbourg meeting was mediated by three MEPs and joined by the EU's Enlargement Commissioner, Johannes Hahn.
The two sides failed to engage over concrete proposals but did determine a time frame for future talks and agreed on the need to establish guarantees that any deals that resulted would be respected by all parties.
The Macedonian media have meanwhile reported that the EU is ready to up its involvement by appointing a special representative to directly engage in talks between the country's leaders.
An unnamed representative of the European Commission was recently quoted as saying that the European External Action Service is mulling candidates for the role, aiming to find a diplomat who has no affiliations either to the Social Democrats or the centre-right.
The last EU special representative for Macedonia was French diplomat Alain Le Roy, who helped broker the 2001 Ohrid Peace Accord, which ended an armed conflict between Albanian insurgents and the security forces. Le Roy is currently the Secretary General of the European External Action Service.
Meanwhile, following reports that not all journalists were allowed access to last week's talks in Skopje at the MPs' club, opposition leader Zaev said that free access by the media would be a prerequisite for any future meetings.
"I won't start the talks until my associates inform me that all the journalists have been allowed to enter. Politicians must be open for answering questions. We cannot call journalists the conscience of the society if they are not allowed to ask questions," Zaev said in Skopje on Monday.
The owner of news website Maktel, Sase Ivanovski, complained that he was banned from entering the MPs' club after he earlier quizzed Gruevski on his purchase of a luxury vehicle.
Only days later, Ivanovski sustained injuries to his head when masked men reportedly carrying metal bars attacked him.
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