Russia and Georgia will hold another round of WTO negotiations in Geneva

Representatives of Georgia and Russia will hold another round of negotiations under the mediation of Switzerland on Russia’s accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on Thursday, Georgia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergi Kapanadze said.

Previous rounds of negotiations were unsuccessful, as Russia refused to accept such mechanisms that would ensure full transparency of trade along the Russian borders with separatist regions.

As Kapanadze stressed, Russia agrees with monitoring of only those goods that can move through the separatist regions of Georgia, but not those goods, the final destination of which is in these regions.

Kapanadze also said without an agreement with Georgia the Working Group on Russia’s WTO membership will not be able to adopt a draft document on accession – it is a rather voluminous report, which describes terms of accession into the organization in details.