July 29, 2006	Saturday	Rajab 2, 1427

PARIS, July 28: WTO chief Pascal Lamy urged the trade body's 149 members on Friday to avoid attacks that would make it hard to resume talks on removing trade barriers in order to fight global poverty.

Four days after he suspended five years of Doha Round negotiations owing to a failure by six major trading powers to compromise on tariffs and subsidies, Mr Lamy asked World Trade Organisation members not to withdraw their offers.

“I would ask you not to take from the table those offers they have made and to cease the vitriolic attacks that render a return to the negotiating table more difficult,” Mr Lamy said in an op-ed piece published by the International Herald Tribune.

Mr Lamy's letter was addressed to a generic “trade minister”.

Officials from the European Union and the United States blamed each other for the breakdown in talks that were intended to boost trade to the benefit of poorer countries.

Washington argued that the EU had not reduced its import tariffs enough to warrant deeper cuts in US farm subsidies.

In his letter, Mr Lamy said: “Powerful tariff-cutting formulas that were on the verge of agreement would have opened global markets as never before.”

—AFP