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EU to help Algeria join WTO

BRUSSELS, March 11 (KUNA) -- The third EU-Algeria Association Council meeting which was held in Brussels Monday evening reviewed EU-Algerian ties and regional and international issues.
Other issues such as energy, illegal immigration, visas, and Algeria's access to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) were also discussed.
Dimitrij Rupel, Slovenian Foreign Minister and President-in-office of the Council, told a press conference after the meeting last night that Algeria plays an important role in the EU-Mediterranean area, in the Arab League, and in Africa.
We talked about many topics like economic reform, energy, movement of people, and, of course, the fight against terrorism, he said.
On his part, Mourad Medelci, Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister, told the same press conference "we need to bring the right balance into our relations through a number of important strategies like energy, exchange of people, and access to technologies and improvement of knowledge." Hugues Mingarelli, Deputy Director General of External Relations at the European Commission, said "we will be redoubling our efforts to reach compromise so that as swiftly as possible, we can help Algeria to join the WTO.
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