END TO YUGOSLAVIA SANCTIONS URGED.

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin greeted the final signature of a Bosnian peace deal in Paris yesterday by repeating Moscow’s call for the permanent lifting of UN sanctions on Serbia-led rump Yugoslavia, "as we have always favored." The move would be "important for the political solution of the problem," Chernomyrdin told fellow leaders after the peace signing. (12)

The UN sanctions, which were imposed on rump Yugoslavia in 1992 for its role in triggering the Bosnian war, have already been largely suspended as a gesture to Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic for having pushed his Bosnian Serb proteges towards a peace deal. Russian president Boris Yeltsin earlier this year vetoed two draft laws drawn up by the Duma’s powerful pro-Serb lobby that would have required Russia unilaterally to lift UN sanctions against Serbia and slap them on Croatia.

Foreign Investments in Telecommunications Seen Increasing.