Belarus leader may snub Moscow security meet

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko may snub an ex-Soviet security pact meeting in Moscow hosted by Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev over a milk export row, Belarus' Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Relations between the ex-Soviet allies have been strained by Belarus' refusal to recognise Georgia's breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Russia has banned on technical grounds the import of 1,200 types of milk product from Belarus, which earns billions of dollars from its dairy exports, and last year had about 4 percent of the Russian market.

Lukashenko was due in Moscow on Sunday for the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (ODKB) meeting, which unites Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

"Belarus is seriously concerned over the introduction by one of the ODKB countries of discriminatory trade restrictions violating international agreements," the ministry said.

"Due to continuing uncertainty over this issue, the Belarussian side has not yet taken a final decision with regards to the participation of the official delegation ... in the ODKB council meeting."

ODKB countries control a key land route from Europe to Afghanistan and the organisation is often billed as a counterweight to NATO. The Moscow meeting is due to discuss the creation of a joint rapid reaction force.

Interfax news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying Belarus' attempt to link the milk row with the ODKB meeting was "inappropriate".

On Saturday, Lukashenko asked officials to look into reintroducing controls at the border with Russia. The two countries have been striving for years to form a union state.