Melbourne City Council will take advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade before deciding whether to end its sister-city relationship with St Petersburg.


On Tuesday evening the council was set to decide whether to cut ties with the Russian city over the municipality's anti-gay laws.


But in a last-minute move, councillors voted to defer the decision to early 2014, after concerns were raised that suspending the relationship could have diplomatic consequences.


While lord mayor Robert Doyle said while he was now erring on the side of ending the sister-city affiliation in protest of the laws, it was an area where council needed to tread carefully.


“I would like a direct briefing from the relevant government department,” Cr Doyle said.


Council's decision will now fall on the 25-year anniversary of the relationship.


“A sense of engagement or disengagement will be amplified by that milestone,” Cr Doyle said.


St Petersburg's regional laws criminalise “public action aimed at propagandising sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism and transgenderism among minors”.


A change.org petition calling for Melbourne to suspend its sister-city relationship with St Petersburg has attracted more than 13,000 online signatures.


Gay rights campaigner Carl Katter said St Petersburg was now one “of the most homophobic cities in the world”.


“It's now illegal to even mention the word 'gay' in public in St Petersburg. If yo udo you can be jailed for 15 days or fined 500,000 rubles.


“This isn't the kind of city that I think Melbourne stands for.”