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Georgia Says No Progress in WTO Talks with Russia

Like the previous ones, the recent round of Swiss-mediated talks with Russia over its WTO entry terms also ended without results last week, Nikoloz Vashakidze, Georgia’s first deputy foreign minister, said on Monday.

“Russia refuses to agree on even an elementary minimum of those requirements which it has to meet in respect of Georgia in order to be in line with WTO rules,” he said.

Vashakidze declined to respond a question whether the talks would continue.

Georgian negotiator Sergi Kapanadze, who is deputy foreign minister, told AFP after the talks on Saturday that he saw no reason to convene the next round of talks if Russia’s position remained unchanged. He, however, also said that Tbilisi was ready to continue talks if the Swiss mediators believed more negotiations were needed. But a Russian source close to negotiations told Reuters talks would resume on October 17.

Tbilisi insists on transparency of trade across the disputed borders in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia through exchange of advance cargo information and international monitoring of border crossing points.

Russia says Georgia’s demands are not related to WTO.

“What Georgia is asking of us is not within the sphere of responsibility of the WTO,” Russia’s chief negotiator, Maksim Medvedkov, told Reuters.

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