HONG KONG, December 12 (RIA Novosti, Mark Zavadsky) - The United States is unlikely to sign a bilateral agreement with Russia on its accession to the World Trade Organization before the turn of the year, a senior delegate to the sixth ministerial WTO conference in Hong Kong said Monday.
Rob Portsman, the head of the U.S. delegation to the December 13-18 conference, told a news conference that although the talks would be completed by the end of the year, there were some open questions that had to be solved.
The delegate said he expected to meet with the Russian minister of economic development and trade to discuss differences concerning the bilateral agreement. He added that Russia had differences with other countries, so it would be unfair to say that Russia's WTO membership depended on the U.S alone.
Ministerial conferences are the WTO's highest decision-making body, meeting at least once every two years and providing political direction for the organization.
