Russian, Swiss Presidents Discuss WTO
By Civil.Ge
(Civil.Ge) — Swiss President and Foreign Minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose country mediates Russia-Georgia WTO talks, met with Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev on October 30.
“Today we will discuss our bilateral relations. But of course there is no reason to hide, that we would like to discuss situation about Russian Federation’s accession to the World Trade Organization,” Medvedev said at the start of the meeting at his residence outside Moscow.
“I would like to thank the Swiss Confederation for mediation efforts, which it offers in order to ease Russia’s WTO accession,” he added.
Micheline Calmy-Rey expressed hope that the meeting would be “fruitful and the results will allow Russia to join the WTO by the end of this year, in December.”
“We also very much want that to happen.” Medvedev responded.
Calmy-Rey’s visit to Russia comes three days after Georgia announced that it had accepted the compromise proposal tabled by the Swiss mediators.
According to the Georgian officials the proposal envisages deploying international monitors from a private company at the both ends of so called “trade corridors” – reference to the breakaway regions, but not inside these regions. Trade corridors will be defined by their geographic coordinates not by names in an attempt to keep a status-neutral approach. A contractor company will be hired by a neutral third party, according to the Georgian side.
Russia said it needed several days to review the proposal and to give its response.
