G8 to give trade a push

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Group of Eight leaders met key developing countries on Monday to give a push to world trade talks at a big-power summit strained by divisions over the Middle East.

The United States and its G8 partners, in a final session of their summit, were locked in talks with global trade players including Brazil, India and China, who are pushing for a better deal for the world's poorer nations.

Meanwhile, the United States squabbled openly with G8 partner France over interpretation of a joint summit declaration that urged Israel to be restrained in its offensive in Lebanon but told Hezbollah to make the first moves to end the crisis.

France's Jacques Chirac, who has differed already with Washington by criticising Israeli action as excessive, said late on Sunday that the G8 was basically calling for a cease-fire.

"It is clear that the G8 is calling for a cease-fire. I can tell you that the whole of the G8 has called for a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon," he told reporters.

But Washington, Israel's big backer, flatly contradicted him. "There was no push for a cease-fire this weekend," U.S. Undersecretary of State for political affairs Nicholas Burns told reporters.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Security Council members would on Monday start hammering out a detailed agreement on deploying a multilateral security force to Lebanon, following up a proposal in the weekend G8 statement.

After talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair at the summit, Annan said he would push ahead with the plan as a matter of urgency.

The initial reaction from Israel, however, was cool. "I don't think we're at that stage yet. We're at the stage where we want to be sure that Hezbollah is not deployed at our northern border," Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

ELUSIVE TRADE PACT

G8 leaders at their three-day summit in a tsarist-era palace on the rain-lashed Gulf of Finland agreed on Sunday to set a one-month deadline to map out a framework to close the five-year-old Doha trade round, snagged mainly on agriculture.

By bringing in leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa as guests, they sought to restart the push for an elusive global trade pact.

Key sticking points are U.S. farm subsidies and the extent to which the European Union cuts tariffs on farm goods and developing countries open their markets to industrial goods and services.

The United States said it was sending Trade Representative Susan Schwab on Monday to Geneva, headquarters of the World Trade Organisation. The WTO later said six key trade ministers would meet its chief Pascal Lamy in Geneva on Monday.

Earlier, U.S. President George W. Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged a redoubling of efforts to break the impasse.

"I am convinced that now is the time for us to make a political decision," the Brazilian leader said, adding that negotiators "don't have any hidden cards in their pockets" so it was critical for leaders to get involved.

Assistance to Africa, put at the top of last year's summit by Britain's Blair but initially ignored by Russia for this year's meeting, was also on the agenda for the session to be attended by Annan and the African Union.

Annan said there had been progress since the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, "but there is much more to be done".

Other unfinished business for summit leaders was likely to be a possible comment on high world oil prices to calm volatile markets and on the standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Summit host Vladimir Putin, under fire from the U.S. leadership and others in the West and Russia for his record on democracy, pledged to his partners that he would not change the constitution to give himself a third term beyond 2008.

Putin himself brought up the issue of democracy over dinner on Sunday, initiating "a frank but friendly discussion", a G8 diplomat said.

Putin's critics say his six years in power have been flawed by a tightening grip on the mass media, a clampdown on political opponents and centralisation of power in the Kremlin.

Many of them have said Russia under Putin is not fit to be a full member of the elite G8 club of industrialised democracies.

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