MOSCOW, February 11 (RIA Novosti)-Russia's finance minister said Saturday that progress was being made in talks with the United States on the country's bid to join the body governing global trade.
The U.S. is one of two countries - the other is Colombia - with whom Russia is yet to sign a bilateral protocol on concluding negotiations on its accession to the World Trade Organization.
Alexei Kudrin said: "We were able to present clarified positions to each other... and today we took a pause to determine our final stance on these positions."
Earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow told Vladimir Putin that the U.S. was ready to complete the talks as soon as possible.
