BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Serbia and Kosovo are expected to resume negotiations on cooperation in the next week, a move that could end a standoff threatening Belgrade's aspirations to start accession talks with the European Union, an EU diplomat said on Tuesday. EU governments are expected to decide in December whether to start Serbia's EU entry process by granting it the status of EU candidate. But the issue is divisive in Europe. Several capitals have made it clear they will not consent to a new status for Belgrade, or allow accession talks to begin at a later date, without a significant easing of tensions between Serbia and its former province. Talks between the two broke down in the middle of the year. There has been a wave of violence in the northern part of Kosovo, where a Serb minority lives, and EU diplomats have been conducting mediation efforts in recent months. "Talks are expected to resume at the end of this week or the beginning of next. The exact date is not yet confirmed," an EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Focusing on technical issues, the talks aim to improve cooperation between Belgrade and Pristina in areas such as telecommunications, borders, trade, education and membership in international institutions. In July, Kosovo Albanian police tried to take control of two border crossings in the largely lawless north, where Serbs reject the country's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. Since then, violence has flared up sporadically. Serbs in the north have been manning barricades to prevent the encroachment of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated institutions, challenging Western efforts to reverse the country's de facto ethnic partition. Last week, a Serb man was killed in a shooting in the town of Mitrovica during a fight between Serbs and Albanians. Serbia lost control of its former province in 1999, when NATO bombed for 78 days to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians during a two-year Serb counter-insurgency war. More than 80 countries, including the United States and most of the European Union, have recognized Kosovo as independent. The EU's executive Commission recommended last month that Serbia be granted candidate status as a reward for democratic reforms and the capture of war crimes fugitives. Serbia has satisfied one of the main demands of the European Union for membership by catching fugitives wanted for crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, including Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander who was on the run for 16 years until he was caught in May this year.