THE demand that Albanian should be the second official language in Macedonia is in line with international standards, said Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo after a meeting with his Bulgarian counterpart Solomon Passi on Tuesday. Milo was touring the Balkan states in his capacity as Southeast Europe Co-operation Process chairman.

Milo called on the Bulgarian government to convince Macedonian leaders to accept the Albanian parties' demand. Passi stated that Bulgaria would not exert pressure on a neighboring country. "Each country in the region should contribute to the international effort to solve the Macedonian crisis," said Passi.

The language issue is one of the main points of contention in the latest talks between the parties involved in the Macedonian conflict. The talks between the leaders of the two largest ethnic Macedonian and two largest ethnic Albanian parties, President Boris Trajkovski, and Western mediators James Pardew of the U.S. and Francois Leotard of the EU continued for a fourth day in Ohrid on Wednesday without definitive results.

The Albanian government was against violence and did not supply arms to any Albanian groups in Macedonia, said Milo. The two sides agreed that the Macedonian government needed to solve the crisis through compromise, and that minorities should be treated according to EU standards, Milo said after the meeting.

Prior to the meeting, the political opposition and NGOs requested that the government state its official position on the Macedonian conflict.

The United Democratic Forces (UtDF) submitted a question to Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg in Parliament on Tuesday, requesting clarification of the Bulgarian government's position on the situation in Macedonia. UtDF parliamentary group leader Nadezhda Mihailova argued that the Cabinet's position on the matter was unclear whilst the situation in Macedonia was becoming increasingly volatile.

Also on Tuesday, the Macedonian Scientific Institute expressed concern over the latest developments in Macedonia. In a special memorandum the Institute asked the government to take a clear stand on Bulgarian national interests in relation to the situation in Macedonia. "The problem should be decided so that it will answer the needs of the Macedonian population and not so much those of NATO and the USA," said Prof. Dimitar Gotsev, director of the Institute. The organization included historians and scientists, mostly Bulgarians of Macedonian origin, who had studied the problems of the Bulgarian population in Macedonia, said Gotsev.

The draft of the memorandum was given to new MPs at the beginning of July. It analyzed the situation in Macedonia and gave recommendations for future action. According to Gotsev, most of the politicians had expressed support for the memorandum.

The Foreign Ministry recommended on Tuesday that Bulgarians do not travel to Macedonia, as no passage was possible from Kosovo to Macedonia. The Bulgarian Embassy in Skopje reported that Macedonia has closed its border with Kosovo.

On Wednesday National Assembly speaker Ognian Gerdjikov redirected the UtDF question about the government's position on the situation in Macedonia to the Foreign Minister, within whose area of responsibility the question fell. Thje UtDF parliamentary group leader saw the redirection of the question as reluctance to answer it. According to Mihailova, the question had various aspects which did not lie entirely and exclusively within the competence of the Foreign Minister.

In a letter to his Macedonian counterpart Saxe-Coburg expressed the support of the Bulgarian government for Macedonia's legitimate political powers and institutions. The letter was on the event of Macedonia's national holiday, August 2nd.