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Macedonia: Parties in deal to end political deadlock

MACEDONIA’S main parties reached a deal yesterday on the Balkan state’s political crisis.

The accord, struck in EU-mediated talks, calls for early elections organised by a caretaker cabinet to be held on April 24 2016 and for Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to quit by the end of this year.

The breakthrough came the day after US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland intervened.

A prosecutor will be named by September to probe opposition claims that the government tapped 20,000 people’s phones.

Social Democratic Union of Macedonia leader Zoran Zaev has been leaking excerpts from the recordings since February.

Mr Gruevski accuses Mr Zaev of plotting a coup.

Macedonia is on the route of a Russian gas pipeline to Europe and has opposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine’s war.

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