The United States on Friday asked World Trade Organisation (WTO) member nations to work towards filling the gaps for a successful conclusion of the global trade talks even as it said proposed bilateral negotiations between countries would help a great deal in securing a an acceptable rule based model.
“It has never been our argument that we should start all over again or reopen them, but we have to have some idea of what those gaps and blanks are,” US Trade Representative Ron Kirk told newspersons in New Delhi after the two-day mini-ministerial meeting ended.
The failure of past ministerial meetings to conclude the Doha round calls for efforts to look at other avenues, and bilateral negotiations are necessary, Kirk said.
Brazilian External Affairs Minister Celso Amorim, obliquely hinted that there would still be several contentious issues to resolved .
“In the game of chess, sometimes the end game is much longer over the middle game,” he said.