MINSK, April 14 (RIA Novosti) - Belarusian leader
Alexander Lukashenko will not attend a summit of the
post-Soviet security bloc in Moscow on Sunday in protest to
Russia's ban on Belarusian dairy product imports, Belarus'
Foreign Ministry said.
Earleir in June, Russia banned imports of over 1,000 types
of milk products from Belarus, a major item of its budget
revenues, saying producers in the ex-Soviet republic had failed
to comply with new Russian standards.
"At this moment, we face an open economic discrimination
by one of the members of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) against Belarus in an important category of
products. Objectively, such actions undermine economic
security, which is a fundamental basis for stability and,
therefore, for comprehensive and all-embracing security," the
Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"In this situation, Belarus was forced to make a decision
on cancelling its participation in the CSTO meeting in Moscow
on June 14," the statement said.