page_title: North Macedonia
section_title: 2001 insurgency
hierarchical_section_title: North Macedonia / History / Modern period / 2001 insurgency
caption_attribution_description: English: Albanian Protesters holding a sign stating, "I am Muslim I am not a terrorist" and holding the Black Flag of Jihad
context_page_description: North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a country in the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. It gained its independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. A landlocked country, North Macedonia has borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. The capital and largest city, Skopje, is home to roughly a quarter of the country's 2.06 million inhabitants. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people. Albanians form a significant minority at around 25%, followed by Turks, Romani, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Aromanians.
  The history of the region dates back to antiquity, beginning with the kingdom of Paeonia, presumably a mixed Thraco-Illyrian polity. In the late sixth century BC, the area was subjugated by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then incorporated into the kingdom of Macedonia in the fourth century BC. The Romans conquered the region in the second century BC and made it part of the larger province of Macedonia.
context_section_description: A conflict took place between the government and ethnic Albanian insurgents, mostly in the north and west of the country, between February and August 2001. The war ended with the intervention of a NATO ceasefire monitoring force. Under the terms of the Ohrid Agreement, the government agreed to devolve greater political power and cultural recognition to the Albanian minority. The Albanian side agreed to abandon separatist demands and to recognise all Macedonian institutions fully. In addition, according to this accord, the NLA were to disarm and hand over their weapons to a NATO force.
  Inter-ethnic tensions flared in North Macedonia in 2012, with incidents of violence between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians.
caption: The inter-ethnic violence in North Macedonia in 2012
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