India blocking WTO? Disagree, says Sitharaman as it battles to save Doha

NAIROBI: With a few hours left for the tenth WTO ministerial to end, India is striving hard to save the Doha Development Agenda from getting buried amid speculation that New Delhi was being a deal breaker again. The action moved to Twitter as stalemate continued in the closed door meetings with no clarity emerging on the bargaining chips being used by the developed and developing countries .

India's efforts to get a deal on agriculture were perceived by some as blocking a deal in Nairobi- or a replay of Bali. Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted ''Need to ensure Indian farmers/agri interests are safe. Undue haste in pushing select (issues)''.

The developed and developing countries have been engaged in intense negotiations for the last four days and the talks went on till wee hours of 3 AM on Thursday.

''On a section branding India as blocking the WTO is motivated. My national interest important for me'' and ''India blocking WTO?! Disagree,’’ she tweeted.

Her tweets came with reassurance given by the Chair of the tenth ministerial Amina Mohamed who said that there is no crisis and hoped to reach a deal in the next few hours.

Putting to rest speculation of a divide happening between India and Africa, she said that there is ''no direct conflict between'' the two and the Nairobi draft declaration has been mostly cleaned up. India has had the support of the G-33, Africa group and the LDCs till now

It was this text that had rattled India as it has completely ignored its demands and concerns on foo security, special safeguard mechanism and exclusion of new issues till the existing ones are resolved and India had submitted a revised ministerial text with language that suited it.

India has asserted that it has not given up on the public stockholding issue and wants it to be included in the preamble of the Nairobi declaration. It also wants an SSM delinked from market access.

Officials in the know said that DDA is the sticking point of the talks.

''Let the fundamental issues be clear...everything else is small,'' said one official.

Another official corroborated this state of play in the back-to-back closed door meetings and said :'The US is against the usage of the word DDA in any text because it wants to segregate India and China from the rest of the developing countries. India is against this kind of differentiated treatment,'' said an official.

With no outcome visible on the core issues of the future of the Doha round and agriculture, the Nairobi ministerial of the WTO seems to have hit a dead end with no side willing to budge from its position.

While the US has been vocal on discontinuing with DDA for a long time, India has strongly articulated its position on reaffirming the round and not accepting new issues till the existing ones on permanent solution for food security are sorted.