ASTANA, May 29 – Ukraine will be granted observer status at the Customs Union, a Russian-led trading bloc, which also includes Belarus and Kazakhstan, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced Wednesday.

Nazarbayev, who chaired a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, the top governing body of the Customs Union, said papers granting the status will probably be ready by the fall of 2013.

"Ukraine has expressed its intention to obtain the observer status,” Nazarbayev said. “We supported this and made the appropriate decision."

President Viktor Yanukovych, who joined the high-level meeting of the union for the first time, said a memorandum outlining the status will be signed on May 31 in Minsk by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

Observer status will allow Ukraine to join policy discussions and make suggestions within the trade bloc, but the country will not have any voting rights.

"Observer status allows Ukraine to participate in the decision-making,” Azarov said in an interview with Belarus-1, a Belarusian television.

"The fact that Ukraine will have information about upcoming decisions and will have the opportunity to express its views before they are introduced is very important,’ Azarov said.

The development comes as Ukraine has been seeking to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union at a summit in Vilnius in November.

European politicians said Ukraine still had to implement several reforms, including the upgrade of the election and judicial systems, to be able to sign the agreement.

Ukraine had been considering Euro-Atlantic integration as its primary foreign policy objective since the mid-1990s. The European Union's Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Ukraine went into force in 1998.

Yanukovych’s plans to obtain observer status for Ukraine at the Russia-led bloc have already triggered criticism from opposition politicians.

“Who has been preaching about Yanukovych being the ‘European integrator’?” Viacheslav Kyrylenko, a member of the opposition Batkivshchyna group, said. “He is surrendering Ukraine to Moscow via the Customs Union at full speed. Wake up, Ukraine!”

Sergei Glaziev, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Ukraine's decision "to resume its integration into Eurasian economic structures" cannot be carried out along with Kiev’s European Union association bids, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Boyko responded that he does not expect any objections from the European Commission over Kiev’s plans for observer status in the Customs Union.

Russia has recently threatened to impose trade restrictions on Ukraine unless the country cancels its plans to sign the free trade and political association agreement with the EU.

The Customs Union summit focused on further integration within the b loc and plans to form a Eurasian Economic Union by 2015 -- a bloc they say would be modeled after the European Union.

Nazarbaev said Kyrgyzstan will also join the Customs Union and experts are working on a road map that would allow Bishkek to join the bloc by 2015. (tl/ez)