Georgia ready to concede on WTO?

This report in the Moscow Times suggests that Georgia may remove certain of its conditions for Russia joining the World Trade Organization: Georgia will announce within days that it is removing its conditions on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, the leader of the Georgian opposition party said, citing a source close to President Mikheil Saakashvili‘s administration. Manana Manjgaladze, Saakashvili’s ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

This report in the Moscow Times suggests that Georgia may remove certain of its conditions for Russia joining the World Trade Organization:

This report in the Moscow Times suggests that Georgia may remove certain of its conditions for Russia joining the World Trade Organization:

Georgia will announce within days that it is removing its conditions on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, the leader of the Georgian opposition party said, citing a source close to President Mikheil Saakashvili‘s administration.

Manana Manjgaladze, Saakashvili’s press secretary, denied the rumor in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio on Wednesday. Georgia’s position on Russian accession to the 153-member organization remains unchanged, she said.

Georgian authorities have demanded since the August 2008 war that Russia allow Georgian border guards at customs checkpoints on the Abkhaz and South Ossetian sections of the Russian-Georgian border.

Moscow opposed the demands as incompatible with its recognition of the regions’ sovereignty.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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