West seen blocking Russia from WTO

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia wants to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) but the West is blocking the process, the country's first deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview in Vedomosti newspaper on Friday.

"Entry into the WTO is one of our top economic policy priorities. We really want to be in that organisation as soon as possible," the business daily quoted Shuvalov as saying.

"We evaluate the situation as one in which the partners aren't allowing us to finish negotiations and complete the admission process," he said.

Russia is the largest world economy not within the WTO and has been trying to enter the organisation for 15 years.

The White House has warned that Russia's August incursion into neighbouring ex-Soviet Georgia could result in delayed entrance into the WTO.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials last month said they would be prepared to walk away from WTO negotiations in retaliation, and were freezing some commitments made in the course of the entry talks so far.

(Reporting by Chris Baldwin; Editing by Charles Dick)