Russia will never abandon its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence for the sake of joining the WTO, Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said. “The new demands put forward have nothing to do with WTO, but other issues, namely, the revision of these countries’ statuses, a step that we will never take.”
This clarification was made during the talks that resulted in the Kremlin’s adoption of the so-called ‘Swiss compromise version’ of the Moscow and Tbilisi WTO treaty. Switzerland acted as a mediator, because both sides do not have direct diplomatic ties after the events of 2008.
The talks focused on monitoring of goods at the Abkhaz and South Ossetian borders, which, prior to these agreements, was the last stumbling block to Moscow's WTO accession. The resolution of this issue has opened the way for Russia to eventually join the WTO after a record-setting 18 years of negotiations.
Web design,