BUENOS AIRES, Aug 4: World trade talks have not failed and can still be revived, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva insisted as he embarked on Monday on efforts to bring the United States, India and China back to the table.

“I don’t believe that the Doha Round is yet a failure,” Lula said in his weekly radio address broadcast on Monday.

“I think there were difficulties, and in that difficulty it was better to stop to reflect how to continue,” he said of the negotiations at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva that ended last week.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy had last Tuesday announced that the talks had “collapsed” after nine days of haggling.

Differences between industrial countries and developing nations -- particularly between the United States and India -- were said by diplomats to have been the obstacle. Lamy has since said technical-level discussions left over from the WTO talks are in fact still simmering away.

Lula noted the trade talks had been dragging on seven years before the Geneva session, which had been presented as a “make-or-break” moment.

He added that there was still hope of fanning the embers of the negotiations back to life, and he was communicating with the US, Indian and Chinese leaders to get them on board.—AFP