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EU Official Says WTO's Doha Meeting Should Be Held
Executive trade commissioner of the European Union (EU) said Monday a key international trade meeting in Doha in November should be held despite last week's attacks on symbolic U.S. buildings.
"We have to work to maintain the November multilateral meeting, " European Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy told a European Parliament committee, referring to the World Trade Organization ( WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar.
"Not because of obstinacy, not because nothing has changed, but for political reasons: because dialogue and negotiation between states or regional bodies sharing the benefit of common legal rules is of vital importance," Lamy said.
Lamy is in strong favor of launching a new round of global trade liberalization talks at the Doha meeting, two years after a similar WTO gathering in Seattle failed to do so.
In the aftermath of last week's devastating attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington, some trade diplomats at WTO headquarters in Geneva have said they believed the November 9-13 gathering in Doha would have to be postponed, especially if the United States launched retaliatory strikes.
Earlier, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank canceled their annual meetings planned for September 29-30 in Washington, over security concerns.
However, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick has said he remains determined to make the Doha meeting a success and WTO Director-General Mike Moore has said planning for the meeting was going ahead.
In a separate speech at a Brussels conference on trade earlier on Monday, Lamy said the road to Doha was charted.
"I want to add my voice to the statements of both the WTO director-general and USTR Bob Zoellick that the commitment to Doha is undiminished. If the terrorists' objective was to bring the world to a halt, we should not give them that satisfaction," Lamy said.
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