Belarus East-West balancing act may depend on Georgia

By Sabina Zawadzki - Analysis

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko's careful balancing act between Russia and the European Union may yet come to grief because of a conflict on the other side of the former Soviet Union.

Russia, his traditional ally, has been pressing Minsk to recognise as independent states two separatist regions of Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, after Russia drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia last August.

This unofficial demand has been made just as Lukashenko has undertaken small but significant steps towards the EU, which condemned Russia's actions last August and has urged any country wanting friendly ties not to recognise the two regions.

For years Lukashenko faced Western accusations of human rights abuses but recently he has relaxed his grip on the state and the EU has noticed.

"The authorities now face an important choice -- to recognise or not Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And this choice is about with whom Belarus wants to be -- with the West or with the East," said Alexander Milinkevich, the most prominent leader of the often divided liberal and nationalist opposition.

"This is the litmus test of how seriously the authorities want to develop relations with the European Union and what sacrifices they are prepared to make."

The United States had long labelled ex-Soviet Belarus the "last dictatorship in Europe" and, together with the European Union, had accused Lukashenko of stamping out opposition by jailing activists, muzzling the media and rigging elections.

But since arguing with Moscow in 2007 over energy prices, Lukashenko has gradually taken steps to appeal to the EU. The last of those the West called political prisoners were released last year and independent media have been allowed to publish.