NATO peacekeepers have issued an ultimatum to Serbs to remove roadblocks on the border between Kosovo and Serbia, as a tense standoff threatens to trigger renewed violence in the region.<br /><br />A trade row spilled over into violence in late July, when Kosovo's government in Pristina ordered its security forces to take over two crossings on the border with Serbia to enforce a newly imposed ban on Serbian goods.<br /><br />Serbs in northern Kosovo reacted angrily and an ethnic Albanian police <br />officer was killed and four injured in ensuing clashes.<br /><br />Serbs form a majority in the two northern provinces of Kosovo. Albanians form the majority in most other areas.<br /><br />Local Serbs have for weeks been manning 16 barricades blocking the main <br />access roads to the border gates.<br /><br />The commander of NATO-led forces in Kosovo (KFOR) said his troops would remove roadblocks near sensitive border crossings on Monday, if local Serbs fail to do so voluntarily.<br /><br />Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 but Serbia still considers the breakaway territory its southern province.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Barnaby Phillips reports from the Kosovo border.
