Macedonian security forces said they were attacked twice around the western town of Tetovo yesterday, clouding talks on ending an ethnic Albanian revolt that were deadlocked for a second day.
In the first incident, police said Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski came under fire with shoulder-launched grenades on his way back from the town, the unofficial capital of Macedonia's Albanian minority.
Police chief Risto Galevski said the attack came from a hill above the road. The convoy was forced to return fire but there were no reported injuries.
In a separate incident, two Macedonian civilians were killed when their car ran over a landmine. It was not clear whether the victims, a mother and her son, were targeted deliberately. Two Macedonian soldiers were critically injured in a shooting incident, also near Tetovo.
Ethnic Albanian demands that Albanian become an official second language in Macedonia appear to have deadlocked peace talks held over the weekend in the southern lakeside resort town of Ohrid.
Sources close to the Macedonian Slav parties negotiating with the two ethnic Albanian parties in the ruling coalition said little progress was being made on the issue and the talks, hosted by President Boris Trajkovski in his summer residence, would likely drag on into Monday and maybe beyond.
One source in Mr Trajkovski's delegation said the language demand was the major obstacle. An accord is seen as the only way to stave off a civil war that has been threatening the Balkans republic since an armed ethnic Albanian rebellion began in February.
The rebel National Liberation Army (NLA) and the Macedonian security forces are observing a ceasefire rescued by NATO this week after pitched fighting around the northern town of Tetovo threatened to engulf the whole country.
The talks opened on Saturday with Mr Trajkovski, the party leaders and the EU and US envoys, Mr Francois Leotard and Mr James Pardew, all meeting round the same table.
But in a sign of the differences still to be narrowed, Sunday's talks were conducted with the Slav and ethnic Albanian parties holding separate discussions with the Western envoys, who shuttled between the two. A source in the envoys' entourage said the language demand was proving to be "a tricky issue".