WASHINGTON, Oct 25: US trade officials accused India on Friday of hampering efforts to revive world trade talks after their collapse last month in Cancun, Mexico.

The United States wants to resume World Trade Organization negotiations based on a compromise text put together by Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez at the Cancun meeting.

But India, along with Brazil, was the leader in Cancun of the so-called G21 group of developing countries, which pressed for much deeper cuts in US and European Union farm subsidies than were contained in Derbez’s compromise text.

India’s apparent refusal to even negotiate from (the Cancun) text is very unfortunate, Richard Mills, a spokesman for the US Trade Representative’s office, told Reuters. It highlights the paralysis within the Brazil-India group and will stall the process.

The Cancun text is a broadly acceptable document upon which the WTO can move forward on agricultural negotiations at the heart of the round, Mills said. It’s not the final text, but it’s something to use as the basis for negotiations.

The 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum — which includes the United States, Japan, China, Canada, Mexico as well as other countries in Asia and Latin America — this week also endorsed using the Cancun text.

But in comments published on Wednesday by the Press Trust of India, Indian Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley rejected the idea. Since the WTO operates by consensus, all members must agree on how to move forward.

The (Cancun text) cannot be the starting point of any discussion ... It completely failed to gauge the mood at Cancun and in fact was contrary to the mood prevalent there. It was in fact the main cause of the stalemate there, Jaitley was quoted as saying.

Washington and Brussels accused the G21 of making steep demands from developed countries without offering much trade liberalization of their own.

Since then, at least five countries in Latin America who want bilateral free trade agreements with the United States have left the G21 group.

Senior officials from WTO member countries will meet in Geneva in December to discuss how to move the talks forward.

WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi recently warned time was running out to get negotiations back on track.—Reuters