ST. PETERSBURG, June 8 (RIA Novosti) - The completion of talks on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization has been postponed until the fall, the economics minister said Friday.
"The timetable for the completion of talks has been moved to the fall," German Gref told a news conference at the XI International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg.
Russia earlier said it was planning to complete all bilateral and multilateral negotiations on WTO entry by mid-summer, but it failed to reach an agreement at bilateral talks with Georgia in May.
Georgia said it would cease to block Russia's bid to join the global trade body only after Moscow honors its 2004 commitment to close down checkpoints on its border with Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. But the Kremlin insisted that this was not a WTO-related issue.
The sides agreed to hold a new round of talks in the summer.
In addition, Russia has yet to complete bilateral talks on its WTO accession with Vietnam and Cambodia, and needs multilateral approval from its trade partners within the 150-member organization.
