By Gleb Bryanski
MOSCOW, June 23 (Reuters) - The United States and European Union are to blame for Russia's decision to drop a unilateral bid to join the World Trade Organisation, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told Reuters on Tuesday.
Russia, the biggest economy outside the 153-member trade body, is now negotiating entry along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, with which Moscow says it will create a customs union.
The move, which has left the WTO secretariat in confusion, was announced by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin just days after Russian officials held talks with U.S. and EU trade representatives.
"The customs union is the concrete result. A lack of Russian membership in the WTO is also a concrete result of joint work by the U.S., EU and Russia in recent years," Shuvalov told Reuters in an interview.
"Moreover, I cannot say it was Russia's fault," said Shuvalov, the minister responsible for overseeing both the WTO accession talks and integration with Russia's ex-Soviet neighbours.
He said he saw no positive signals from the United States and EU. "We always felt some kind of special treatment which often took the form of 'You do what you have to do and then we take you into the WTO'... We accepted up to a certain limit but saw no movement towards accession," Shuvalov said.
Russia has been negotiating to join the WTO for 16 years but Russian officials say the United States and European Union have made unreasonable demands for entry.
Shuvalov said the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan were more active in pursuing the customs union with Russia than WTO negotiating partners had been in pursuing Russia's accession to the trade body. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)