Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said on Tuesday that a border dispute with Kosovo should be resolved before the Serbian province's final status is settled, news from Skopje reported.

"The border dispute should be resolved before, or during the process of defining the province's final status, but not after," Gruevski told the visiting top UN official in Kosovo, Joachim Rucker, who said he is of the same opinion.

The internationally recognized border between Kosovo and Macedonia was established by an agreement between Belgrade and Skopje in 2001.

Macedonia has said that it will only support any solution to Kosovo issue on condition that it does not harm Macedonia's interests.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 when NATO troops forced Serbian forces to withdraw from that province.

Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's 2 million population, insist on its independence, while Serbia and Kosovo's Serb minority wants to retain it as an autonomous region.

(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2006)