MOSCOW, March 26: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday Moscow would next week tackle the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) in Brussels on its plans to patrol Baltic airspace when former communist bloc countries join the western alliance.

Mr Lavrov said Moscow would also raise the topic of latest ethnic strife in the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo. Expressing unease at Nato's planned Baltic patrols, Mr Lavrov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying: "If it's a defensive posture, the question is, who are they defending themselves against?"

Nato has announced plans to start patrolling Baltic airspace on Monday, when four former communist bloc countries plus the three Baltics states which were Soviet constituent republics join its ranks, confirming plans that have edged up tensions with Russia.

Mr Lavrov was expected to attend next Friday's Brussels session of the Nato-Russia Council, a consultative body set up in 2002 to improve cooperation between post-Soviet Russia and the western alliance.

Mr Lavrov's warnings about the Baltic patrols contrasted sharply with remarks in Brussels Friday by US Nato envoy Nicholas Burns, who took a studiously relaxed attitude to the brewing controversy, insisting Nato contacts with Russia on the alliance extending eastwards had been straightforward and non-polemical, and there was no sense of crisis.

Russia is unhappy about Nato's move to station warplanes in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which are set to join Nato. The seven newcomers will formally join Nato Monday when they hand over membership ratification treaties at the State Department in Washington. An official welcoming ceremony will follow at Nato headquarters in Brussels next Friday, April 2.

The Baltic states are joining Nato together with former Soviet bloc states Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, plus Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia. After spending years fruitlessly trying to block the expansion of the military alliance up to its borders, Russia has come out on the offensive, with Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov saying Thursday he may order a nuclear build-up in response to Nato's Baltic operations.

Mr Lavrov said that in Brussels next Friday Russia would also raise the topic of the troubled province of Kosovo where inter-ethnic violence erupted this month between the majority ethnic Albanian population and the minority Serbs.

The Serb people has been traditionally backed by Moscow. In the violence 28 people died, 30 Serb churches and monasteries were torched, seven villages were razed and 3,600 people were made homeless.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels about the seven Nato newcomers, US Ambassador Burns said: "The discussions we have had with Russia have been quite straightforward and quite non polemical. There is no sense of crisis at all between Nato and Russia over enlargement."

Burns confirmed that Nato planned to station aircraft in Lithuania to protect the air space of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Nato-Russia Council brings together the Nato allies and Russia to identify and pursue opportunities for joint action as equal partners. Areas of mutual interest include the struggle against terrorism, crisis management, arms control and missile defence. -AFP