US congress opposes Riyadh joining WTO

Members of the US congress called on the US President George W. Bush not to approve permitting Saudi Arabia to join the World Trade Organiztaion.

Some 47 members of the Republican and Democratic parties justified in their address such a call because of Riyadh's bad record in the field of human rights, religious rights and the shortage in the taken steps to fight what is called terrorism.

The members also called on Saudi Arabia to withdraw from the Arab League's boycott of Israel office and to take more effective measures to stop financing ideologies which feed "terrorist movements in the world."

Washington and Riyadh had entered intensive negotiations concerning Saudi efforts to join the World Trade Organization. In April, the US trade representative stressed that the two sides are proceeding closely to finalizing an agreement over the tariffs and that Washington is optimistic over solving other problems.

Economic observers had expected the two sides to announce an agreement during President Bush's hosting of the Saudi crown prince Abdullah in April.

As no agreement was not finalized, the Saudi chief negotiator arrived in the USA by the beginning of May with the aim to finalize the agreement within two weeks.

Worthy mentioning that Riyadh has to negotiate over a bilateral tariff agreement with each and every WTO member state that asks for that in the process of joining WTO.