September 06, 2006	Wednesday	Sha'aban 12, 1427

STRASBOURG, Sept 5: Collapsed WTO free-trade talks are unlikely to be revived before mid-term US Congressional elections in November, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said on Tuesday.

Quite frankly, we will have to wait until after the mid-term elections in the US are over for the negotiations to move again, he told lawmakers at the European Parliament.

Five years of talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ground to a halt in July after negotiators failed to hammer out the framework for an agreement.

The current Doha round of trade talks, which opened in the Qatari capital in 2001, was aimed at removing agricultural and industrial trade barriers and using commerce to give developing countries a boost.

It was meant to yield a trade treaty by the end of 2004, but the target was later shifted to December 2006.

Mandelson said that the current impasse is not due to any institutional deadlock and that a solution requires political will from certain WTO members.

The EU trade chief has consistently accused Washington of not sacrificing enough of its support for its farmers in the talks, which he said was in turn keeping other big emerging countries from making more ambitious offers.—AFP