Protesters block ways to U.N. building in Kosovo; police arrests 27

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians opposing talks with Serbia on the future of Kosovo had set up tents and used concrete barricades Thursday against the U.N. administrators who have run the province for seven years.

Photo: Protesters block ways to U.N. building in Kosovo; police arrests 27

Protest organizers said 25 of their members were detained during the melee and many others were injured. Police said two of the protesters required medical assistance in the scene

The protesters, from a group calling itself "Self-determination," are demanding that the U.N. mission leave Kosovo and accuse the Kosovo government of being corrupt U.N. puppets.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku said the motive of the protest "makes no sense," pointing out that the U.N. mission in Kosovo is on its way out of the province, as talks to determine Kosovo's future status enter their final stages, the AP reports.

The protest occurred as U.N. and NATO-led peacekeepers prepared to mark the seventh anniversary of their arrival to administer the province following the alliance's air intervention that stopped Serb forces' bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanians.