, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria began a two-day meeting at a former Ottoman Turkish palace in Istanbul. Their talks were scheduled months ago as part of regular consultations between southeast European nations. But Serbia‘s security crackdown in its southern province of Kosovo looked likely to dominate the agenda. The European Union will on Monday ban all investment in Serbia to punish Belgrade for its military offensive in Kosovo, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said. In the last two weeks, Serbian security forces have stepped up a campaign to crush the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is fighting for independence. Thousands of civilians have fled to Albania to escape devastating Serbian operations against towns said to be KLA bastions. Violence in Kosovo, whose Albanian majority has long chafed under centralised Serbian rule, has claimed about 250 lives since February and threatened to ignite a wider conflict.