By Daniel Bases
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Wednesday his Caucasus nation, a member of the World Trade Organization, is not the only impediment to its larger rival Russia joining the world body.
"There are many issues out there between them and Russia," Saakashvili said, referring to WTO officials.
Speaking to investors and government officials at the International Economic Alliance forum, Saakashvili said there are many questions to be resolved around Russia's long-standing push to join the WTO.
"So we were not the last ones left and you should give us some time until we are maybe the last ones ... Maybe we won't be the last ones. But right now there is a long line of countries," Saakashvili said of opposition to Russia's entry, in response to a question from Reuters.
Russia has been negotiating with the WTO for 17 years. Its application recently picked up momentum, a U.S. trade official told Reuters in Geneva earlier this week. For more, see: [ID:nLDE68K25C]
U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in June they had instructed their negotiators to resolve technical issues by the end of September to clear the way for Russia to join.
That deadline is certain to be missed. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would not be in the WTO this year, but Washington and Moscow are keen to push ahead in the coming months.
Georgia, a pro-west nation on Russia's southern tier lost a brief war with Russia in 2008 when an assault by Georgia's U.S.-trained military on the rebel region of South Ossetia triggered a crushing counterstrike from Russia, its former Soviet master.
Western support for the 42-year-old Saakashvili has waned over his record on democracy. He faced down months of street protests last year.
Relations between Russia and Georgia remain fraught. Some opposition leaders have called for closer ties with Moscow in the hope of ending a Russian embargo on Georgian wine and mineral water and restoring direct flights between the countries.
Saakashvili sarcastically applauded Putin for helping create Georgia's economic success.
"I told him, Vladimir Vladimirovich we will put a statue to you, erect a statue as to the creator of the modern Georgian economy. He of course thought it was a very bad joke. But actually I meant it. Thanks to that embargo we are much less vulnerable," Saakashvili said.
Georgia's investment-driven economy registered gross domestic product growth of 8.4 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, accelerating from a 4.5 percent year-on-year increase in the first quarter. Last year the economy contracted 3.9 percent.
In highlighting the resilience of the economy, Saakashvili said: "What I think it means is that these kinds of methods don't work anymore and I think to be accepted they should play by the rules. Rules are good for everybody, whether or not you are big or small.
"I want them to be a part of the international system, but provided there are minimum standards of civilized behavior," he said. (Reporting by Daniel Bases; Editing by Dan Grebler)