Macedonia is to form an emergency national unity government today, a day after the army said it had killed some 30 ethnic Albanian guerrillas in a heavy bombardment of rebel-held villages and convoys.
The shelling shattered a day-long ceasefire that enabled the political deal but there was no immediate indication the army action had put the coalition arrangements in jeopardy.
Parliament, convening at 11 a.m. is still expected to easily approve new ministers coming from four main parties - two Slav-dominated and two ethnic Albanian - and some affiliated smaller parties.
The United States and the European Union see the broad coalition as the best defence against an escalation of the crisis into civil war and even a wider Balkan conflict.
The deal to form the new government was first reached on Tuesday but was then stalled by the resistance of the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, which demanded a lasting cease-fire.
In what appeared to be a quiet deal, the army lowered the intensity of the bombardment of rebel-held villages on Wednesday and Thursday and halted it on Friday, when the Party for Democratic Prosperity (PDP) finally agreed to join.
The broad coalition aims to isolate the ethnic Albanian gunmen by forcing parties to unite and pass laws which answer the long-standing grievances of the country's one-third Albanian minority.