Brazil says seeks new summit on WTO trade talks

HAMMANSKRAAL, South Africa (Reuters) - Brazil has asked wealthy Western nations to call a special summit to try to ensure a global agreement on trade is met before an end-April deadline, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Sunday.

Amorim told a news briefing at a summit of centre-left government leaders in South Africa British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other Western leaders had indicated a willingness to push harder for a deal, although specific steps remained vague.

"If you ask of specific progress, I'd say we committed to remain politically engaged, they'd be prepared to add political impetus required to reach an agreement," Amorim said.

At December's World Trade Organsation (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong, ministers set the end of April as the deadline for a draft deal on opening agricultural and industrial markets, a key part of the WTO's so-called Doha round negotiations.

Details of the overall pact need to be finalised by the end of 2006 if the pact is to be ratified as planned in 2007.

"We would need a meeting that we believe leaders are willing to participate in to prepare for the completion of the round," Amorim said.

South African sources said Brazil had sought an urgent summit of the Group of Eight (G8) rich countries to discuss the trade agenda, but Blair appeared reluctant to convene such a gathering if success was not assured.

Amorim said developing countries led by Brazil and India still felt that the European Union had made insufficient steps on the trade agenda, leading to a lacklustre response from the United States and others.

"We feel that these should not be tit-for-tat negotiations, this is something everyone should understand," Amorim said.

"Brazil and others are prepared to make some movement of our own and do everything that is necessary to move forward. This is an important step in the fight against poverty and I believe it is something that we must commi t fully to achieving," he said.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has joined Blair and South African President Thabo Mbeki at the weekend Progressive Governance Summit outside South Africa's capital Pretoria. The leaders of New Zealand, South Korea and Ethiopia are also among the participants.

Top officials from the "G6" group of countries including the United States and European Union along with Japan, Brazil, India and Australia are due to meet in London next month to try to advance the negotiations.