Estonia's foreign minister arrives in Kosovo

Estonia's foreign minister will visit Kosovo Friday to discuss the process of resolving the future status of the disputed province, U.N. officials said.

Photo: Estonia's foreign minister arrives in Kosovo

Estonia's foreign minister arrives in Kosovo

Urmas Paet will meet with Kosovo's top U.N. official Soren Jessen-Petersen and the province's representatives, the United Nations said. He is scheduled to lunch with Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi.

Kosovo has been run by a U.N. mission for nearly seven years. Negotiations between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Serbian officials on the province's future status were launched earlier this week and the dispute over its future is expected to be resolved by the end of 2006.

Estonia has a small contingent of peacekeepers in Kosovo, participating in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission patrolling the province since mid-1999, when an alliance air war halted Serb forces crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, reports the AP.

I.L.