Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev on Monday backed Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and called for the lifting of sanctions against Belgrade as a key step to peace in the region.


"Russia firmly supports the policy of peace pursued by ... Yugoslavia and President Milosevic personally," Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said after the two met in Belgrade on Monday.


"[Russia] agrees with the view that lifting the sanctions imposed against this country represents a key step which must be taken by the international community toward achieving a political resolution of the entire Yugoslav crisis," it said.


During the 16-nation meeting in London last Friday, Western countries rejected a deal with Milosevic worked out by European Union peace mediator Carl Bildt to ease sanctions on Belgrade in return for recognition of Bosnia.


Russia has long sought to use its historic ties with its fellow Orthodox Christian Serbs in Serbia to help end the crisis and has regularly found itself at odds with its partners in the five-nation Contact Group on Yugoslavia.


Tanjug said the two sides agreed that the escalation of the fighting in Bosnia must be stopped.


It said the two sides called on the international community to seek stability by peaceful means without resorting to "frequent military threats and actions."