EU Envoy Looks To Defuse Balkan Crisis

The European Union Special Envoy Miroslav Lajcak has urged Serbia and Kosovo to return to dialogue on normalizing ties to avoid a repeat of last month's violence in northern Kosovo. Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina have spiked since September 24, when some 30 armed Serbs stormed the village of Banjska in Kosovo's predominantly ethnic Serb north and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Police recaptured the monastery after a shootout in which three attackers and a Kosovar police officer were killed. "The attacks in Banjska…