EU to host Serbia-Kosovo talks in Brussels amid tensions

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Associated Press

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Wartime rivals Serbia and Kosovo will hold high-level crisis talks which the European Union mediators hope will de-escalate growing tensions in the Balkans. Russia has been trying to further increase its influence in the region amid the war in Ukraine. Hopes that the rare face-to-face meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti could produce a major breakthrough are slim. But Western officials overseeing the decades-old deadlock between the two neighbors hope that at least it could eliminate increasing warmongering rhetoric by both sides. The meeting is being held in Brussels on Thursday.