Swiss foreign minister to visit Kosovo

Associated Press, Jul 30, 2005 5:54 AM

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey will begin a four-day tour to Kosovo Saturday and meet with her country's soldiers deployed in the disputed province as part of the NATO-led peacekeeping force.

During her visit, Calmy-Rey is set to hold discussions with Kosovo's president Ibrahim Rugova and other leaders in the province.

On Monday she will join some 220 Swiss soldiers stationed in Suva Reka, a southern Kosovo town, to celebrate the Swiss national day, said Jean-Philippe Jeannerat, the spokesman for the foreign ministry.

Kosovo is run like a de-facto U.N. protectorate and the Swiss soldiers are part of the 17,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force that have patrolled the province since 1999, when the alliance's bombing ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The province remains disputed between its ethnic Albanian majority, which demands outright independence, and Serbia which insists it should remain within its borders.

Talks to resolve the issue are expected to start later this year, if Kosovo reaches U.N.-set standards on democracy, rights of minorities and rule of law.