Barack Obama said to Dmitry Medvedev that the United States would support the entry of Russia in the World Trade Organization (WTO), indicating that the two men found common ground on economic and trade cooperation.

“To enhance the integration of Russia into the global economy, I reaffirm our strong commitment the access of Russia’s World Trade Organization,” said U.S. President Barack Obama to the reporters after having received at the White House his Russian counterpart.

The two men shared at a joint press conference of their desire to overcome the technical problems hindering this project by fall.

This decision marks a further step in warming relations between Washington and Moscow, that Barack Obama had wanted to “rethink” early in his mandate and turn the page after tensions that peppered the two terms of George W. Bush administration.

The detente between the two countries are already doing so by a new agreement on strategic arms reduction as well as support from Kremlin on issues such as the nuclear Iran or Afghanistan conflict.

After these steps in the diplomatic sphere, Barack Obama is now willing to extend this progress to the commercial field.

This perspective also concerns Kremlin, which made the economy a priority after it was severely hurt by the global financial crisis. Russia recorded a contraction of 7.9% of GDP in 2009.

In addition to the long awaited announcement of U.S. support for Russia’s entry to WTO, the two leaders said they reached an agreement on the resumption of U.S. poultry exports to Russia, that Moscow had decided to ban last January in advancing safety reasons.

During the joint press conference, Obama also said China had made progress by announcing that it would loosen its currency regime but it was still “too early to tell” if the appreciation of Yuan would be sufficient.