OSLO Norway AP The risky job of nurturing peace in the troubled Kosovo province of Yugoslavia is at the top of the agenda for a meeting of about 60 European nations that opens Wednesday in Oslo. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is sending 2000 unarmed observers to Kosovo in hopes of ending the killing of ethnic Albanian civilians and keeping mainly ethnic Serb police and troops in check. OSCE member delegations including 45 foreign ministers are expected to adopt a resolution at their two-day Oslo meeting giving full support to the difficult mission. ``This is the biggest and most significant task the OSCE has ever taken upon itself'' said Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek who assumed the organization's rotating chairmanship in January. Several hundred people have been killed and up to 300000 people mostly ethnic Albanians have been displaced since Serbia launched a crackdown on Kosovo separatists in February. Kosovo is a province of Serbia the dominant republic of Yugoslavia. Faced with an imminent NATO airstrike against his forces Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic agreed in October to a U.S.-brokered truce that is shaky and troubled by sporadic violence. Vollebaek said about 400 monitors from the Kosovo Verification Mission are already in place in Kosovo and will continue arriving at the rate of about 250 a week until the full number is reached by the second half of January. Vollebaek said a great deal of responsibility rests on Milosevic to ensure the safety of the observers and that NATO remains ready to protest the foreign monitors if the need arise. ``But what I hope for and want is a political process that leads to a real political settlement'' Vollebaek said. The Norwegian foreign minister was disappointed that some of the heavyweights of the OSCE including the United States and Britain were not sending their highest-level delegations. Both U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and British Foreign Minister Robin Cook have said they cannot attend. The meeting which lasts until midday Thursday will also touch on a broad range of European security topics including Bosnia the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya and Albania. Vollebaek also said Austria was expected to be elected to chair the organization for the year 2000 and that next year's OSCE summit would be held in Istanbul Turkey in October. In addition to its 54 member nations such countries as Japan South Korea Algeria Egypt and Israel were sending observers. APW19981201.0341.txt.body.html APW19981201.0927.txt.body.html