SKOPJE (AFP) - Visiting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Macedonians they faced "a clear choice" between a future with NATO or a return to the unstable past in a referendum on power-sharing envisioned in a 2001 peace accord.
Rumsfeld said a controversial law that would give the ethnic Albanian minority greater representation in local government "certainly helps strengthen democracy here at the grassroot level."
The centralization law, which sparked riots when it was passed in August, has been put up for referendum November 7, accentuating long-standing tension between the Madeconian Christian orthodox majority and the mainly Muslim Albanian community.
"Success in moving closer to NATO will depend in large part on the implentation of the 2001 Ohrid framework agreement, including the creation of stronger and more effective local government," Rumsfeld said at a news conference in Skopje.
"The Macedonian people face a clear choice between a future with NATO, in which stability and economic growth can flourish, or a return to the past," he said.
Macedonia, along with Albania and Croatia, aspires to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by 2007.
Passed August 12, the centralization law would give Macedonia`s Muslim ethnic Albanian minority greater representation by changing electoral municipal boundaries and elevating Albanian as a second official language.
Its passage would complete the implementation of the so-called Ohrid peace accord which ended more than seven months of conflict between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and government forces in 2001.
The country`s predominantly Christian Orthodox majority has fiercely opposed the law, seeing it as a step toward federalization or even division of the country, which itself is a fragment of the former Yugoslavia.
Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski has played down fears that the referendum, regardless of the outcome, will fuel ethnic tension.
Crvenkovski, who met with Rumsfeld, said Friday that a "yes" vote would clear a major obstacle to Macedonia`s path to European Union integration.
Macedonia formally opened accession talks with the EU early this month.
"We have to decide between the past and the future, between the European perspective and Balkan prejudice," the Macedonian leader said.
The VMRO-DPMNE opposition party and more than 30 other groups launched a campaign Friday calling on people to vote "No" in the referendum.
Rumsfeld, who arrived here late Sunday from Iraq, also signed an agreement on cooperation in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) with his Macedonian counterpart Vlado Buckovski.
The accord provides Macedonia with 258,000 dollars in equipment and training material to improve monitoring and detection of illicit trafficking in WMD material.
"This agreement paves the way for greater cooperation between our nations in conquering that threat," Rumsfeld told reporters at a joint press conference with Buckovski.
Rumsfeld also met with Prime Minister Hari Kosov and deputy prime ministers Musa Xhaferi and Radmila Sekerinska.
His one-day visit was one of a series Rumsfeld has made to small countries to thank them for the troop contributions they have made in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rumsfeld awarded four Macedonian soldiers with medals of commendation for bravery in action that saved the lives of US troops in Iraq.
He later departed to the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta, which serves as an important logistic hub for supplies during the US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq last year.