Labor vows to focus 'like a laser' on Kosovo and Serbia in foreign policy charm offensive

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Continued confrontation and slashing amid outbreaks of violence in Kosovo have raised fears of a return to the bloody conflicts that preceded the birth of the nation after the outbreak of Yugoslavia.

As the international community has focused on the war in Ukraine, tensions have risen in the Western Balkans between Serbia and Kosovo with bitter accusations, recriminations and sectarian clashes .

Last weekend, NATO rejected Serbia's demands to send a thousand police and military to Kosovo for the first time since the war more than a thousand years ago. two decades to protect compatriots detained by Belgrade and Orthodox Christian religious sites in the country.

There have been sporadic outbreaks of violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in recent months. In the latest incident, a Kosovo soldier was arrested after allegedly shooting and wounding two Serbian boys, aged 11 and 12, near the town of Shterpce.

This follows an attack on another Serb as he was returning from a church service during Orthodox Christmas celebrations. Kosovo police said they came under fire near the Serbian border.

Bosnian Serb troops marched this week. There have been sporadic outbreaks of violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in recent months

Serb forces have been in "combat readiness" on the border since late December. Belgrade now insists it has the right to station forces in Kosovo under the UN resolution to end the war in 1999 - in which 13,000 lives were lost - to ensure stability and preventing communal violence.

David Lammy, Labor foreign affairs spokesman, is among European and American politicians and officials who have visited Kosovo and Serbia to assess what is happening and try to defuse the situation.

Mr. Lammy, who met Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti as well as members of the Serbian community told The Independent: "The situation is very worrying, but I think both sides are open to dialogue and keen to ensure that there is not a return to bloodshed. Obviously we have to ensure that this happens and that the dialogue between the two parties is continues.

"Everyone is rightly appalled by what is happening in Ukraine and there has been a lot of talk about how E...