Kosovo, Serbia reach deal to end trade war

* Kosovo, Serbia deal to end mutual trade embargoes

* Kosovan landowners to gain access to property records

* Ongoing talks to focus on telecoms, electricity

(Adds official EU statement, detail, background)

BRUSSELS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Kosovo and Serbia struck a deal to end a mutual trade embargo on Friday, after a breakdown of talks on the issue in July led to an outbreak of violence and threatened to damage their European Union aspirations.

Pristina and Belgrade found a compromise over customs procedures during a round of negotiations facilitated by the EU in a bid to help resolve a tangle of problems crucial to Kosovo's existence.

"These two embargoes will now be lifted. That's good for regional trade; that makes the region look more European," the EU's facilitator for the talks Robert Cooper said.

Friday's agreement resolves through careful wording the thorny issue of Kosovan customs stamps, which Belgrade had so far refused, as it does not recognise its former province's independence.

"The customs stamp is important for anybody in Kosovo who makes products which they want to export either to Serbia or through Serbia. For the last three years that has not been possible because the Serbian government didn't recognise the Kosovan customs stamp," Cooper said.

The deal includes an agreement also to grant Kosovo access to coveted official documents - such as property records - currently held in Serbia.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but the 60,000 Serbs living in northern Kosovo still consider Belgrade their capital and Serbia refuses to accept Pristina's secession.

Serbia has blocked imports from Kosovo - largely agricultural products - since 2008. Violence flared up in July when Kosovo attempted to seize border posts - staffed mostly by ethnic Serbs - to enforce a reciprocal import ban.

Since its widely recognised secession, Kosovo has taken the name of the Republic of Kosovo. Under Friday's agreement, customs stamps will be marked "Kosovo Customs," allowing Serbia to trade without having to recognise a Kosovan republic.

European leaders have used the carrot of EU membership to pressure Serbia into easing its position on Kosovo.

Serbia had hoped to win EU candidacy late this autumn after it arrested its two remaining fugitives, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, for war crimes during the Bosnian and Croatian wars of the 1990s, and handed them over to the U.N.'s Yugoslavia tribunal.

Negotiators will continue talks later this month, broaching technically and politically complex questions of telecoms and electricity networks.