MOSCOW, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Russia and Australia will sign a bilateral protocol in late February on Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization, a Russian trade official has said.
"We are maintaining an intensive dialogue with Australia at the moment," Andrei Kushnirenko, deputy director of the trade talks department at the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, said Monday. He said that the signing of the agreement was "in the offing," the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Australia is one of three countries on the 58-member working party on Russia's accession to the WTO whose approval Russia has yet to obtain. The remaining two are Colombia and the United States.
A bilateral agreement with Colombia is being drafted at the moment, Kushnirenko said. Russian WTO negotiators will meet with U.S. officials in late February or early March in Geneva.
Russia's latest WTO deal was its Feb. 6 bilateral agreement with India, which formalized the completion of the two nations' talks on Russia's joining the 149-member global trade body.
