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WASHINGTON-Russia could soon finish its 15-year-old bid to join the World Trade Organization and, "at the appropriate time," the White House will ask Congress to approve permanent normal trade relations, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday."Right now, the priority is very much on WTO accession ... and, inshallah, that can and should happen in the near term," said Reuben Jeffery, under secretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs.Jeffery's use of the Arabic phrase for "God willing" echoed comments Andrey Denisov, Russia's first deputy minister of foreign affairs, made moments earlier in the describing the U.S.-Russia economic agenda."We're facing intensive work before the end of this year-signing agreements on peaceful nuclear energy cooperation and finishing Russia's accession to the WTO-inshallah," Denisov said to laughter from his audience, reflecting the many other times Russian officials have predicted an end to the talks.The optimistic remarks to the U.S.-Russia Business Council came just days after the U.S. trade representative's office again put Russia on its annual list of countries with the worst record on counterfeiting and piracy of American goods.The United States reached a bilateral agreement with Russia on the terms of its WTO accession in November 2006.But under that pact, Moscow still needs to pass legislation and take other steps to strengthen its intellectual property rights protection regime, the U.S. trade office said.Russia is by some estimates the world's seventh largest economy, making it by far the largest country outside of the world trade body.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
