Dutch development minister arrived in Kosovo to discuss private business sector

The Dutch development minister visited Kosovo Tuesday to discuss the private business sector in the disputed U.N.- run province as part of a plan to promote Dutch investments in the Balkans. The Netherlands has contributed Ђ160 million (US$192 million) since mid-1999 in projects on infrastructure, health and the return of those displaced by the 1998-99 conflict between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb government forces.

Development minister Agnes van Ardenne met with Kosovo's top U.N. official Soren Jessen-Petersen and other leaders. She will also give a speech at Pristina's university on regional cooperation and free trade, the AP reports.

Kosovo is legally a province of Serbia-Montenegro, the union that replaced Yugoslavia, but has been under U.N. administration since mid-1999, when a NATO-led air war halted Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. A.M.