Talks to improve tense relations between Russia and the EU ended in deadlock yesterday after the two sides failed to end their long-running dispute over meat exports.

Moscow said it would maintain its ban on Polish exports, an issue that threatens to block the start of talks on a new EU-Russia partnership deal covering trade, energy and other issues.

European diplomats hoped two days of talks in Limassol, Cyprus, would herald an end to the dispute, but they finished with the two sides apparently as far apart as ever.

Asked whether the talks had managed a breakthrough, Markos Kyprianou, EU health commissioner, said: "No." He added: "We have a different approach as to how to proceed from now on."

Mr Kyprianou believed that Warsaw had done enough to show it was addressing Moscow's concerns about the quality and safety of meat exports, including meat from third countries in transit through Poland.

But Alexei Gordeyev, Russian agriculture minister, said: "Our prime interest is to restore order in the meat market."

The European side has long suspected that Moscow's position is as much about politics as food safety and that the lingering dispute is a symptom of wider tensions on issues such as energy, human rights and the future of Kosovo.

Senior Russian business leaders and officials have pulled out of this week's Russian Economic Forum in London - a key event for wooing the City - under what some said was Kremlin pressure.

Both sides in the meat dispute said they would continue to work for an agreement.

Moscow has claimed that lax controls in Poland have allowed Indian buffalo meat to enter Russia labelled as beef.