GENEVA: The World Trade Organisation on Monday formally accepted Kazakhstan’s bid to join the body, ending nearly two decades of negotiations that the WTO has called among the most difficult in its history.

Meeting at its headquarters in Geneva, the WTO General Council approved the membership terms finalised last month.

After the formal approval, WTO Director General Robert Azevedo described the protracted accession process as “very challenging”.

But, he said, talks moved quickly once the government in Astana made clear that it was finally serious about WTO membership.

“Once Kazakhstan decided to join the organisation, really, and they clearly gave that message to me less than two years ago, we managed to finalise this despite the immense complexity of the process,” Azevedo told journalists.

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev — who has led the resource-rich nation for the past quarter century and was recently re-elected with more than 97 percent support — was on hand to witness the formal acceptance by the council.

While the 74-year-old president of the ex-Soviet republic did not attend the press conference following the meet, his Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrissov described the accession as “historic”.

“We have worked very hard. This has been a long and winding road,” Idrissov said.

Kazakhstan began WTO accession talks in 1996, but negotiations were repeatedly stalled, in part because of Kazakhstan’s membership in the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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