The pro-Western leader said that membership of the World Trade Organisation would allow Ukraine to negotiate with Russia over "restrictions" imposed on Ukrainian exports worth up to three billion dollars (two billion euros).

"Considering Russia's own aspirations to join the WTO, we will have interesting negotiations" on thorny issues such as Russian anti-dumping duties, Yushchenko said.

Members of the 151-nation global trade body have the right to demand bilateral agreements with aspirant members that can be used to extract trade concessions.

Russia had planned to join the WTO this year but has continually set back its deadline for joining. Ukraine, which submitted its membership in 1993, is the biggest country besides Iran and Russia outside the WTO.

Ukraine's candidacy is expected to be approved at a WTO meeting next week.

Appearing confident and relaxed in a presidential office ahead of his visit to Moscow on February 12, Yushchenko also said he would press ahead with plans to join NATO that have angered Russia.

"I have no doubt that this path is the right one for Ukraine.... We will obtain guarantees for our national security that are the biggest and the most efficient," Yushchenko told AFP.

"It's the sovereign right of every nation to set its own security policies and we are exercising this right," he added, hinting at opposition in Russia to Ukraine's membership.

Earlier this month, Ukraine officially asked NATO to accept it into the alliance's Membership Action Plan (MAP), a precursor to full membership, at a summit of the Western military alliance in April.

Russia responded saying it would take "appropriate" measures.

Ukraine's powerful pro-Russian opposition is firmly opposed to joining NATO and surveys show more than half of Ukrainians are also against the bid.

"It's not a question that can be decided overnight, or in a year. It's the subject of difficult discussions" with the Ukrainian people, Yushchenko said.

Membership of the European Union, NATO and the WTO have been key foreign policy aims for Yushchenko, who has sought to wrest his former Soviet republic from Moscow's orbit since coming to power in 2005.

"I would like relations between Ukraine and Russia to be a lot better, I aim for them to be efficient and open. I don't always succeed but it's not something I can blame the Ukrainian side for," Yushchenko said.

Following the popular protests of the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko won a repeat presidential election after the victory of his Moscow-backed rival Viktor Yanukovych was declared invalid because of vote rigging.

His ally in the Orange Revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, is now the country's prime minister. She leads a narrow coalition majority in the Ukrainian parliament after elections last year.

Giving no concrete details, Yushchenko on Thursday warned that there were "irritation" and "disagreeable feelings" within the government but said they would not be "fatal" for the ruling coalition.

Tymoshenko already served as prime minister under Yushchenko in 2005 but the two political leaders fell out after a few months over a series of corruption scandals and Yushchenko sacked Tymoshenko.

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