COMBINED REPORTS


BRUSSELS -- The European Union, seeking to pressure President Boris Yeltsin into a negotiated settlement with breakaway Chechnya, on Monday delayed implementing an economic accord with Moscow.


The 15 EU foreign ministers acquiesced in a decision of the EU Executive Commission not to seek the ratification of the accord Yeltsin and the EU heads of state signed last summer. "We freeze it de facto, but without saying so," said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos.


The move did not result in economic sanctions, reflecting the fear in EU capitals that this would harm relations and hurt the economic reform drive.


"We don't want to destroy our work with Russia," said British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. "I'm not in favor of sanctions."


But Germany could halt its financial support for Russia if Moscow does not change its approach to crushing rebel Chechnya's independence bid, Bonn Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said Monday.


Kinkel, who demanded an end to the Chechen conflict after meeting his Russian counterpart Andrei Kozyrev in Switzerland on Sunday, told German radio that Bonn still considered economic sanctions against Russia unnecessary and unjustified.


But he added: "Once again I told the Russian foreign minister clearly and plainly that if things continue in Chechnya as they appear at the moment, then investment and of course economic support as well will automatically be withheld."


As a leading supporter of the reform process in Russia, Germany has a special right to insist Moscow continue along the path to democracy with a market economy, he said.


"If we continue to trust in the reform process, then that is not a one-way street, then Russia must also justify this trust," he said.


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