Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Russia

Russia Begins Meetings In New Push To Join WTO

The WTO's headquarters in Geneva (file photo) (epa)

July 23, 2007 -- Russia has begun five days of meetings aimed at advancing its longstanding effort to join the World Trade Organization.

TEXT SIZE - +

July 23, 2007

The talks in Geneva are expected to address Russia's commitments on customs fees and regulations, industrial subsidies, and import restrictions.

However, officials say no "formal" meetings will take place because Georgia continues to oppose Russia's entry into the WTO.

Tbilisi wants Russia to stop trading with its two separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and has also protested Russia's ban on Georgian wine and mineral water.

(AP, ITAR-TASS)

Moscow And Tbilisi

Russian military hardware being withdrawn from a Russian base in Batumi, Georgia, in August 2005 (TASS)

WHAT COMES NEXT? Although Russia is unlikely to push an aggressive military response to the current tensions with Georgia, it has a number of economic, political, and diplomatic options at its disposal. Already on October 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin summoned his inner circle to weigh Moscow's options... (more)

Russia Says Georgia Sanctions Will Continue

Russia Suspends Transport, Postal Links To Georgia

EU Commissioner Urges Dialogue With Moscow

Ulterior Motives Seen Behind Escalation Of Spy Row

Georgia Turns Russians Over To OSCE

MORE: Coverage of the situation in Georgian from RFE/RL's Georgian Service and in Russian from RFE/RL's Russian Service.

ARCHIVE

RFE/RL's English-language coverage of Georgia and Russia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More