By Kole Casule SKOPJE, May 29 (Reuters) - Macedonia's biggest ethnic Albanian party, now in opposition, has struck a deal with the prime minister that is expected to end its six-month boycott of parliament, which drew criticism from the West. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE and the opposition Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), created from a 2001 Albanian guerrilla army, issued a joint statement saying weeks of dialogue had been concluded positively. "The two parties have committed themselves to continuing the political dialogue in areas where consensus is needed and which are important for Euro-Atlantic integration," they said, in a reference to Skopje's bid to join the European Union and NATO. A DUI source said the party could be expected to come back to parliament on Wednesday or Thursday. The source said the deal includes bills that would require a majority of votes from Albanian deputies to become law. The former Yugoslav republic of 2 million people became an official candidate for EU membership in 2005. But it has yet to clinch a date for accession talks. The West intervened diplomatically in 2001 to end months of fighting, brokering a deal for greater minority rights. But the accord has been years in implementation and tensions remain. The DUI is the main political bloc to emerge from an ethnic Albanian guerrilla army that fought government forces in 2001 for greater rights for Macedonia's 25 percent Albanian minority. The party went into opposition last year for the first time since the conflict, when Gruevski was elected in July and formed a coalition with the DUI's smaller rivals, the Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA). DUI leader Ali Ahmeti accused Gruevski of ignoring the will of Albanians, who had voted in greater numbers for the DUI, and pulled his deputies from parliament at the turn of the year. Fearing political instability and even a return to violence, the European Union urged Gruevski to seek conciliation with the DUI, warning that the impasse was slowing much-needed reforms. But the negotiations have drawn fire from the DPA, which accused Gruevski on Sunday of talking to the wrong party and threatened to quit the coalition. There was no immediate comment from the DPA on Tuesday, but party sources said the prime minister had managed to smooth over the dispute.
