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Ukraine should adapt national legislation to some Customs Union norms – president

He underlined that the Customs Union countries were sales markets for Ukrainian products and that trade with TS states was worth over 60 billion dollars

KIEV, January 4 (Itar-Tass) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich said Ukraine should adapt its national legislation to the norms of the Customs Union /TS/ of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan which do not contradict Kiev's international commitments. Yanukovich said so in an interview to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine.

"Experts of both countries are working on this issue now. It was planned that by December 18 /the date of Yanukovich's working visit to Moscow/ they would draw concrete proposals. But the visit had to be postponed because the experts had not been able to coordinate all the fine points of future accords," the president explained.

Ukraine will continue to seek "instruments and opportunities for mutually advantageous cooperation with the Customs Union."

He underlined that the Customs Union countries were sales markets for Ukrainian products and that trade with TS states was worth over 60 billion dollars.

On Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara said Kiev was expecting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to visit Ukraine on January 13-14 to discuss the format of cooperation with the Customs Union.

"We'll discuss this question; I believe we'll step up the dialogue with Russia over the format of Ukraine's possible participation in the Customs Union, without being a member of this association," Kozhara said.

Earlier, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Vladimir Rybak said the issue of Ukraine's joining the Customs Union was not on the present-day agenda.

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