(Corrects July 21 story to say in para 5 that the maintenance and the order to suspend flows came on July 16 and 17, not June 16 and 17)
* Minsk blames slow repair work for flows suspension
* Russia says suspension a surprise
* No timeframe for diesel flows resumption
* Russia bans some meat products
(Adds Russian meat ban, comment from Ventspils)
By Andrei Makhovsky and Alexander Yershov
MINSK, July 21 (Reuters) - Russia and Belarus renewed their trade war on Tuesday after several weeks of peace as Minsk said it shut down a major Russian diesel pipeline and Moscow banned some Belarussian meat imports.
Belarus' emergencies ministry said it had ordered the shut down of a diesel fuel pipeline to Latvia's Ventspils citing failures by the Russian pipeline owner to fix numerous defects that could lead to leaks.
The closure extended a long list of Russia-Belarus trading rows in the past few months, which involved disputes over gas arrears and dairy products amid Minsk's rapprochement with the West and chilly ties with its former top ally, Moscow.
Russia, which ships around 10 million tonnes of diesel per year to Ventspils via Belarus, said it was surprised by Belarus' decision as it thought it had agreed on a repair schedule for the ageing pipeline.
"It was unexpected," said Russian refined product pipeline operator Transnefteproduct's first vice-president Vladimir Nazarov, who added the pipeline was on regular four-day maintenance since July 16 when his firm received an order not to resume flows indefinitely on July 17.
Belarus emergencies ministry's spokesman Vitaly Novitsky said TNP's slow repair work was to blame for the full closure as the firm did little to fix problems since accidents twice forced the pipeline's closure in 2007.
"As far as we know the owners are already proceeding with large-scale defect-fixing operations. As soon as the most dangerous defects are fixed the flows will resume," Novitsky said, while declining to provide a timeframe for the work.
Nazarov said TNP and Belarus last month agreed to fix a total of 150 defects before the end of 2009 and TNP had therefore halved flows in recent weeks.
The pipeline supplies the port of Ventspils which is operated by international trader Vitol. Russia plans to suspend the flows once it expands its own diesel export facilities on the Baltic Sea.
"Certainly this (suspension) affects us. Still, I hope they will do the maximum to bring it back to operation," Olga Petersone, chairwoman of Ventspils Nafta, told Reuters.
"I cannot give any specific numbers on how much this will set us back. This is something we will have to discuss with our partners at Transneftproduct," she added.
RUSSIAN BANS MEAT IMPORTS
In a separate development, Russian animal and plant health watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement on Tuesday it had banned imports of meat products from two plants from Belarus.
In another statement it ordered its regional divisions to increase control over meat and dairy products from some 40 Belarus firms "in order to prevent imports dangerous in the veterinary and sanitary sense".
(Additional reporting by Jorgen Johansson in Riga and Alexandras Budrys in Moscow, writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Editing by Peter Blackburn, + 7 495 775 12 42)