The presidents of seven ex-Soviet states were to meet Friday for a summit of a security grouping led by Russia and touted as an eastern counterweight to NATO.

But the meeting at an idyllic location on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan was set to be marked by differences as Moscow struggles to keep control over its former Soviet subjects.

The leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) were set to discuss the implementation of a deal signed on June 14 of the group's first joint rapid reaction force, the Kremlin said in a statement.

The summit, billed as a informal meeting, was due to get underway after 1000 GMT.

The creation of the force -- officially called the Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF) -- is a clear bid to rival the Western military alliance's own joint operations.

But the idea had a difficult birth when the authoritarian but increasingly pro-EU President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko refused to show up at the June 14 meeting in Moscow to sign the document.

Lukashenko, to the surprise of some, is to attend the Kyrgyzstan meeting and Kremlin officials had expressed confidence that he will sign the document at the lakeside resort of Cholpon-Ata.

But Valentin Rybakov, an aide to Lukashenko, told the Kommersant newspaper: "As a sovereign and independent state, Belarus will decide itself what CSTO documents to sign and when."

The newspaper commented: "Moscow's plans to strengthen the CSTO's military components and transform it into the Russian equivalent of NATO are threatened with collapse."

Russia will also not be able to succeed in persuading Kyrgyzstan to sign documents on the creation of a base for the force in its city of Osh at the summit, Kommersant said.

The organization's secretary general, Nikolai Bordyuzha, said the creation of the base has not even been put on the summit agenda, the Interfax news agency reported.

The CSTO is made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Kommersant said Uzbekistan's strongman President Islam Karimov -- currently seeking better ties with the United States -- would signal his opposition to the base's creation at the summit.