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Kyiv, November 28 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization will not ease the annual Ukrainian-Russian talks on gas, Ukraine's deputy economy minister Valeriy Pyatnytsky believes.

He said this in an interview with the Deutsche Welle.

The deputy minister also refuted the information that Ukraine pulled out of the talks on Russia's accession to the WTO.

On the contrary, Ukraine is involved into the active dialog with Russia about the unification of sanitary and phytosanitary norms, technical regulation and the protection of intellectual property, the official said. In these talks, Ukraine is pursuing its interests, however it is not going to blackmail Russia using the issue of the latter's accession to the WTO, Piatnytsky said.

"It is no use building our relations on blackmailing. It's better to have bad rules than no rules al all. We are interested in Russia's becoming WTO member and complying with all the rules of the organization. We are complying with them," he said.

At the same time, Piatnytsky assumes that the talks about Russia's accession to the WTO won't be completed until 2010.

"After this it will be easier for Ukraine to bargain with its northern neighbor. However, thought gas also an article of trade, it will not be easy for Ukraine to buy the blue fuel from Russia," the deputy economic minister opined.