Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday he hoped that no changes would be made to Russia's WTO accession documents expected to be approved in Geneva on Friday.
"I hope nobody will add anything new (to the package of documents) and we will not get a different document because we have spent so much energy on this in the past few years," Medvedev said at a news conference after the Russia-EU summit in Belgium's capital.
"No other state has been trying to enter the WTO for such a long time and other countries which are more powerful in their economic potential than Russia and very weak states, all of them have covered this route much quicker," he added.
Russia has been working to join the WTO since 1993. The last remaining obstacle for its entry has been Georgia, which has refused to approve Russia's entry ever since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008 when Georgia attacked South Ossetia to bring it back under Tbilisi's central control. After the war, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another ex-Georgian republic, Abkhazia.
Russia's chief WTO negotiator, Maxim Medvedkov, said in early November that Moscow and Tbilisi had reached a compromise deal with the help of Swiss mediators on monitoring goods crossing the borders of the former Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The last step for Russia's entry into the WTO is to be made this Friday where the package of the country's documents will be approved at the WTO ministerial meeting.
