Russia will not request lifting of EU sanctions at Munich conference - deputy PM

Sergei Prikhodko, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Chief of Staff of Government and Chairman of the Organizing Committee of SPIEF 2015, speaks during a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2015 in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 18, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will not use a conference in Munich to ask European countries to lift their sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict and does not plan to lift its own counter-sanctions for now, a Russian deputy prime minister said on Thursday.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will travel to a security conference in Munich later this week and meet Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister.

"I think it would not be completely correct and simply pointless to request that the sanctions are cancelled," Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko told reporters.

"The matter will not be raised like that."

Prikhodko added that the question of lifting Russia's counter-sanctions had not been raised "at the current stage".

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Andrew Osborn)