arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

And stuck right in the middle is Mr Rexhep Adili, a bearded, greying ethnic Albanian owner of a car workshop under the main stand.

He waits now for the spark that seems likely to plunge the city into a new round of fighting.

"I think there will be war now," he said yesterday, sipping coffee in the shade of the concrete stadium. "If the Macedonians wanted to accept our demands, they would have done so long before now."

Two hundred metres away, groups of National Liberation Army guerrillas in a mixture of black boiler suits and combat jackets lounge in the hot sunshine.

On the opposite side of the stadium blue helmeted police reservists peer nervously over the tops of the white sandbags of their bunker.

"We can take the town any time we want," says the rebel spokesman, known only as Shpati, or "sword" in Albanian.

"But we won't come in. We want to give space to the dialogue."

But the dialogue appears to be over before it properly began: An outline constitutional document proposed by the European Union mediator, Mr Francois Leotard, has been rejected by the ethnic Albanians because it fails to give them their key demand - a constitutional amendment giving them equality with the country's Slav majority.

Mr Leotard and the US mediator, Mr James Pardew, spent yesterday shuttling in and out of neighbouring Kosovo where the rebel leaders are based, hoping to buy more time.

Macedonia's government spokes man, Mr Antonio Milosh evski, was upbeat last night: "We are ready to discuss, and I believe the Albanians also will remain in the talks."

North of the city, ethnic Slav villages are emptying. The populations of six villages have chosen to flee. The population of one, Leshok, have opted to stay and the authorities have given them firearms.

"We're not going to run. We're going to fight," said one of a group of heavy-set men standing outside Leshok's main cafe.

"This is our home, we are not leaving. If they come we will shoot them."

The ceasefire is meanwhile beginning to fray at the edges, with sniper fire ringing out each night in the hills around Leshok.

In fact, while both sides talk peace, the country is dividing.

Four fifths of Tetovo is Albanian and the government appears to have decided that it will not fight to hold it. While the nervous policemen at the Drenovats roadblock guard the area around the stadium, other routes into the city are wide open.

Rebel forces have spent the past few days extending their control across a wide swathe of mostly mountain villages in east and northern Macedonia.

Government forces have meanwhile consolidated in more central areas. Nobody will say it publicly, but the reality is partition. It is a reality which horrifies international mediators, because such division will leave a lot of people stuck on the wrong side of the line.

"You know, in a manner of speaking we have had a Cold War between us for some years," says Mr Adili. "What will happen? I don't know. But we were born here so we are going to stay here."