WTO May Address Trade Relations With Sanctions-Hit Russia

GENEVA (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko — Trade relations with Russia in the context of western sanctions can be addressed within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the group’s Director-General Roberto Azevedo told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"The WTO is a good forum for dialogue. The issue of trade relations [with Russia] in the context of sanctions is always something that we can address here. We have channels for dialogue, we talk to each other here, in general the conversation here in WTO has been very productive," Azevedo said.

Russia joined the 161-nation trade bloc in 2012, following almost two decades of intense negotiation. Economic sanctions imposed on Russia over an alleged role in the 2014 Ukraine crisis strained its trade relations with the European Union and several other economies.

Despite this, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent interview that whereas WTO regulations had prevented Moscow from protecting its producers, trade restrictions evicted western companies from the local market and created favorable conditions for domestic business.