U.S. says Russia may continue with unilateral WTO bid

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday that Russia had sent signals that it might still pursue a unilateral bid to join the WTO, but Moscow denied such plans saying it would join only together with two neighbors.

"(Russian Economy) Minister (Elvira) Nabiullina seems to have indicated... they want to pursue a parallel track," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said after talks in Moscow as part of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Russia on July 6-8.

"We are still seeking clarification on this point but we are still very hopeful, very eager and very supportive of Russia acceding to the WTO," he added.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin surprised the World Trade Organization last month by saying Russia would pull out of unilateral membership talks and seek to join the trade body with Kazakhstan and Belarus as part of a customs union.

President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia was "really tired" after 16 years of talks despite the United States saying Russia was very close to joining the WTO while accession as part of the customs union would very problematic.

"According to most of the members of the WTO that is just unworkable, unprecedented and would only delay matters," Locke said.

FAST TRACK GUARANTEES

Nabiullina, who will also be in charge of Russia-U.S. economic and trade relations in the newly created inter-governmental commission, said there was no change to Russian plans to join the WTO as part of the customs union.

"It is already a decision that has been taken and we synchronize our actions together with Kazakhstan and Belarus, because the customs union will be launched already from January 1, 2010," she told reporters.

Maxim Medvedkov, Moscow's chief WTO negotiator, reiterated Nabiullina's comments in an emailed statement and added, "Russia will endeavor to the maximum degree to maintain the agreements achieved in the many years of WTO accession talks."

Yaroslav Lissovolik, chief economist at Deutsche Bank in Moscow said a resumption of unilateral negotiations was only possible if Russia received firm "fast track" guarantees from the United States and other WTO members.

"For this parallel track to emerge Russia needs to receive a guarantee that its unilateral bid will not take another 16 years. There should be a clear signal from main negotiators," Lissovolik said.

MEAT BANS

Russia has often blamed the United States for raising new obstacles in its WTO accession talks and has also criticized Washington for keeping in place trade restrictions, some of them dating back to the Cold War years.

Those include the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which tied trade relations with the Soviet Union to the rights of religious minorities to emigrate. Religious minorities have been free to leave Russia for many years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that dropping the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment would be a priority for the United States administration.

But Locke said the ball was now in Russia's court and the U.S. administration now wanted to see Moscow easing some trade restrictions.

"The president (Obama) made it very clear this is something he could not do unilaterally," he said.

"It requires congressional approval and the members of the Congress were looking for some sort of sign of true interest by the Russian government in encouraging U.S. investment and exports into Russia."

"To take this to the Congress would require steps by Russia to take measure with respect of some of the issues that are of a great concern to American companies with political representation across the country -- mainly some of the bans on food products like pork and poultry," he said.

(Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Gleb Bryanski; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Louise Ireland)