World Bulletin / News Desk 

The European Union brokered a deal on Tuesday for early elections in Macedonia, potentially ending months of political turmoil triggered by damaging wiretap disclosures against the government.

The details of the deal, reached after intense negotiations led by EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, remained unclear, and political sources said the sides would meet again on June 10 in Brussels to agree the specifics.

Political leaders in Macedonia have agreed to hold early elections by end-April 2016, a senior European Union official said on Tuesday, signalling a possible end to months of turmoil in the Balkan country.

The conservative government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been under pressure since January over a raft of damaging wire-tap disclosures released by the opposition, which is seeking his resignation.

EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, emerging from talks in Skopje, said Gruevski and his opponents had agreed "that by the end of April next year there should be early elections".

Hahn gave few details and took no questions, but he said it would be "important to prepare the country" for elections, mentioning in particular changes to the electoral code, respect for minority rights and the independence of the judiciary.

Hahn was flanked by Gruevski and Zaev, neither of whom spoke.

It remained unclear how the deal would resolve the issue of who would organise the early elections, given the opposition's charge that the government stole the last parliamentary poll in early 2014. Zaev wants greater Western oversight.

"Very intense and difficult day but the most important thing is that the deal was finally reached between the four leaders", Artan Grubi, a spokesman for Ali Ahmeti, Gruevski's ethnic Albanian coalition partner, wrote on Facebook.