NATO Steps up Patrols as Kosovo-Serbia Tensions Soar

NATO forces in Kosovo announced Monday that peacekeepers had stepped up patrols as Serbia deployed armoured vehicles on the border with the breakaway territory amid the worst regional tensions in a decade.

The international community, led by the European Union, is calling for talks to ease tensions between Serbia and its former ethnic-Albanian majority province, whose declaration of independence in 2008 Belgrade has never recognised.

Relations have deteriorated in the last week since the  Kosovo government despatched special police units to the north, an area mainly populated by ethnic Serbs who reject the authority of Pristina.