Finland's President Martti Ahtisaari has undergone a remarkable change of roles. At the end of April he dropped plans to stand for a second term after even his own Social Democratic party described him as "unsuitable".
Now he, with Russian and US envoys, Viktor Chernomyrdin and Strobe Talbott respectively, have taken centre-stage in the Kosovo peace deal. Perhaps if Mr Ahtisaari had waited a couple of months he might have been in a position to regain his popularity at home following some fairly strange events which lost him the public's confidence.
In a country in which the consumption of alcohol often reaches legendary heights, Mr Ahtisaari has lost favour with his fellow citizens following a number of incidents, two of them at official state dinners, in which his sobriety was left open to question.
He has been pilloried in the media for his alleged drinking habits and, as presidential elections loomed, he fell behind in the opinion polls, with the Foreign Minister, Tarja Halonen, from his own party running ahead of him.
Born in 1937 in Finland's eastern region of Karelia, in an area which is now part of the Russian Federation, Mr Ahtisaari, a former schoolteacher, has a strong diplomatic background. He served as ambassador to Tanzania and to the United Nations in New York. He also served as UN Commissioner for Namibia. As part of a UN working party in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1991 to 1993 he gained experience of the Yugoslav situation which has served him well in his talks with President Milosevic.
He became the first directly-elected president of Finland in 1994 and this year won high praise for his efforts on Kosovo from the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, who described him as "one of the best, most experienced European foreign politicians".
His role with Mr Chernomyrdin as joint negotiator in Belgrade has made him one of the very few politicians to be regarded highly both in the West and in Russia.
