After a week-long deliberations in Geneva, the World Trade Organisation's Doha Round of trade talks failed to arrive at a major breakthrough. In Turkey, terrorists struck in a nondescript city called Gungoren. More than 50 people died in the bomb blasts in which a number of Kurds were also killed. These events were contemplated, analysed and commented on. We present here excerpts of editorials from the regional and the international press.
Doha Round talks
No headway was made in the Doha round, the global trade negotiations, in Geneva due to the differences between the developed world and the others. The US blamed India and China for the failure of a new international plan to cut tarrifs, and the two fastest growing economies in the world , in turn, passed the ball into Washington's court.
"There is plenty of blame to go around," remarked the Washington Post. It listed some of them as the growing anti-globalisation mood in both the developing and developed countries and the unduly complex WTO process itself.
"Still, as last-ditch talks moved into last weekend, the United States and European Union had made some concessions on farm supports, and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy had submitted a compromise plan that seemed to draw at least tentative approval from most participants. It was at that point that India and China essentially torpedoed the talks, asserting a broad right to raise tariffs to protect their poor farmers from 'import surges,' price drops and other vicissitudes of the world market," it said.
"China's role in the demise of the Doha Round is particularly dismaying, considering China has reaped huge benefits from global trade in the seven years since it joined the organisation - with strong US support," it added.
Gulf Times lampooned the talks and sarcastically said that the nine days of negotiations in Geneva achieved nothing but a "breakthrough over bananas and even that agreement proved to be fruitless because it was deemed part of the whole Doha package".
It elaborated: "Certainly those who believed that the immovable objects that are the United States, China and India could be shifted from their stubborn stance over farm tariffs were one sandwich short of a picnic ... The focus will now turn to the future of the WTO and so it should. After seven years its worthy policy of achieving trade harmony has gone pear-shaped and with 153 members that is hardly surprising. Multilateral trade deals appear to be unworkable unless we are talking bananas."
Financial Times, however, maintained that "multilateralism not dead as a Doha", and the trade talks must still be collective
"Like Wimbledon fortnight but without the aesthetic or entertainment value, the annual breakdown of the Doha round of trade talks is becoming a summer ritual. For three successive years, dark warnings of now-or-never and one-last-chance have ended in a fruitless ministerial meeting. It is time to be brave, swallow hard and accept that the Doha round in its present form has failed," it stated.
It then questioned about the next step that needs to be taken to preserve the principle of negotiating trade collectively. It suggested that worthwhile multilateral trade deals are possible. "It must also set rules: certain members (particularly the US) may be reluctant to abide by the decisions of the WTO's dispute settlement system if they cannot write its laws".
Turkey bomb blasts
Scores of people were killed in two bomb blasts in Gungoren. Turkey blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the outrage. No one, however, has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but the Turkish authorities claim that they bear the handiwork of the outlawed party that is fighting for autonomy for the Kurds in the country.
Commenting on the bomb blasts, Arab News said: "Someone who can plant two bombs, the first as a lure and the second nearby, packed with shrapnel timed to explode ten minutes later, wreaking indiscriminate death and injury around them is not, of course, by definition, capable of humanity. And the PKK has shown itself inhumane and merciless. But unless they were trying to spook moderate Kurds into a fearful reaction, it is quite hard to see why Kurdish terrorists should have struck at this poor suburb."
As no one has claimed responsibility, it stated that the Erdogan government in Ankara, itself under attack in the courts because of its moderate Islamic principles, must beware of adding to the feeling of insecurity by rushing to hasty judgments. "While there is no reason to believe the PKK when it denies responsibility, there are clearly other suspects for this despicable crime. Thirty years ago Turkey was brought to the edge of disaster by right- and left-wing terror feeding on a climate of suspicion and fear. A calm and cautious official response can contain a repeat of the 1970s. Turks should have nothing to fear save fear itself," it added.
