EU to delay sanctions against Russia

The European Union (EU) Monday decided to delay fresh sanctions on Russia by a week to wait for the outcome of the Minsk talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said an EU travel ban and asset freeze on 19 Russian and Ukrainian officials has been agreed to by the EU foreign ministers and merely delayed to give a chance for peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We will see by (next) Monday and see how the meeting in Minsk went," Xinhua news agency quoted Fabius as saying at a meeting in Brussels. "The principle of these sanctions remains but the implementation will depend on results on the ground."

EU member states are divided over sanctions against Russia with some countries worrying about negative impact on their own economies.

In response to the EU and the US sanctions on Russia's defence, banking and energy sectors, Russia has imposed a one-year embargo on food from the US and Europe, banning imports of meat, fruit, vegetable and dairy products.

"Sanctions have cost all of us dearly, the EU has lost 21 billion euros ($23.79 billion) at this point. In Spain, we have suffered in agriculture and tourism," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said before the EU foreign ministers' meeting Monday.