“We should … convene other international forums to condemn this aggression, to call for an immediate halt to the violence and to review multilateral and bilateral arrangements with Russia — including Russia’s interest in joining the World Trade Organization,” Obama said, Reuters reports. The Russian bid for WTO membership got another blow this week as U.S. Commerce Secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, said that Russian membership in the World Trade Organisation is “not near”. “We’ve worked with Russia in terms of the WTO accession and they still have a ways to go. So it’s not as though they’re close to it. They still have some work to do before they get to it,” the Commerce Secretary said in an interview with Reuters. Moscow must reach an overall accord with the 153 members of the WTO covering areas such as intellectual property rights protection, where the United States has a strong interest, before its entry is complete. Georgia is already a member of the WTO and has threatened to block Russia’s admission, Reuters writes
