The president of Macedonia, Branko Crvenkovski, and a deputy prime minister have indicated that Skopje could in coming days formally recognise Kosovo as independent.

Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, has been a difficult issue for Skopje, which is locked in a name dispute with Greece that led to Macedonia's aspirations to join Nato being barred earlier this year. Greece has not recognised Kosovo's independence, while the United States, a leading sponsor of Kosovo independence and a strong backer of Macedonia joining Nato, has been urging countries in the region to recognise Kosovo. Predictably, Serbia has called on Macedonia not to recognise Kosovo.

According to reports in Kosovo dailies on September 24, Macedonian president Crvenkovski said that his country would very soon recognise Kosovo as independent.

"I was more than certain that when I meet you today I would communicate the act of recognition of Kosovo's state by my country but unfortunately the Macedonian government… came with the information that it will postpone this decision for few more days," Crvenkovski said in a meeting with representatives of the Albanian-American National Council, Kosovo media reported.

Serbian news agency Tanjug portrayed Crvenkovski's statements in New York as less definitive, reporting him as saying that he believed that Macedonia would soon have to take a stand on the declared independence of Kosovo and said that in this context his meetings in New York with Serbian president Boris Tadic and Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu were no accident.

"At some point Macedonia should take the final stand on the declared independence of Kosovo," Crvenkovski, who was at the UN General Assembly in New York, said after a meeting with Matthew Nimetz, mediator at the Macedonian-Greek negotiations on a dispute on the name of the Macedonia.

"At this, our state must start from its national interests and take into consideration joint interests with Kosovo, like the border, and Kosovo's stand on our constitutional name," Crvenkovski said, Tanjug said, quoting Macedonian media reports on September 24.

Tadic called on Macedonian authorities not to recognise Kosovo's independence following talks with Crvenkovski held on the margins of the UN General Assembly on September 23.

Tadic said that the government in Belgrade would take "appropriate measures" if Skopje finally decided to recognise Kosovo.

On September 20, Macedonian deputy prime minister Abdulahi Ademi said that he expected Skopje to recognise Kosovo's unilateral independence some time in the week ending September 29.

According to a report by Serbia's Beta news agency, Ademi, a member of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), told Macedonian Alfa TV that this was not the time for Macedonia to insist on Kosovo doing likewise—to recognise the Macedonian state under its constitutional name.

Local self-government minister Musa Jaferi, also from the DUI, echoed his party colleague, saying that Macedonia would recognise Kosovo in the week ending September 29.

"Now is the right time to recognise Kosovo independence," Jaferi told Alfa, according to Beta agency.

Alfa reported that Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci had said that Kosovo would recognise Macedonia, but as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

On September 25, Beta reported from Belgrade that the US ambassador in the Serbian capital, Cameron Munter, had said that the US was not pressuring the countries of the region to recognise Kosovo, but was encouraging them to do so.

"The US encourages all the countries of the world to recognise Kosovo, but it is not obliging anyone to do so," Munter told Beta. He was responding to a recent statement by Montenegrin president Filip Vujanovic that the US and the EU were pressuring Podgorica to recognise an independent Kosovo.