By Rajan Moses
BANGKOK, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The head of a key U.N. agency said its weeklong summit starting this week in Bangkok would be a forum to get stalled global free trade talks moving.
Rubens Ricupero, secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said the summit starting on Saturday would offer a venue to solve disputes between developing nations, non-governmental organisations and the World Trade Organisation.
"I see some other dimensions in the conference...how to help in the healing process after Seattle, particularly from the perspective of developing countries," he told Reuters.
The WTO's ministerial meeting in Seattle last December to try to launch a new "Millennium Round" of world trade talks collapsed amid differences between the U.S. and European Union.
There was also resentment from developing nations over pressure from the West on controversial labour and environment issues, while anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle degenerated into riots.
WTO director general Mike Moore will take part in the UNCTAD summit. Hosts Thailand and UNCTAD have offered to foster talks on free trade along the sidelines of the meeting.
BETTER CONDITIONS FOR NEGOTIATIONS
"The conference could also help Mike Moore and the WTO to launch new trade talks that will be beneficial to developing countries," said Ricupero, adding Moore was due to present a mini-package of proposals for developing nations to consider.
"I think Moore is trying to move ahead with a few ideas to help launch those trade talks. The WTO general council meeting in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday decided to start negotiations on agriculture and services.
"He is trying to create better conditions for these negotiations and for this he will have to address the questions that are pending from Seattle, like the implementation problems," said Ricupero, who is a former Brazilian finance minister and trade negotiator.
He added that developing nations were facing financial and other problems in implementing some free trade agreements reached in the previous Uruguay Round of negotiations.
"Developing countries are saying that they find implementation problems are big...the dislocations, social implications are very great and how to accommodate this problem," he said.
"We will try in this debate to show that their legitimate concerns have to be taken into account."
More than 3,000 delegates from 190 countries will attend the 10th assembly of the UNCTAD which groups and looks after the interests of developing and poor countries of the world.
Key participants include outgoing International Monetary Fund head Michel Camdessus, World Bank President James Wolfensohn, Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and the heads of governments of some key Southeast Asian and African nations.
Ricupero said he would strive to ensure that NGOs and activists, some of whom were behind demonstrations in Seattle, were included in the free trade talks process.
"We will also be looking to see how we can enable the NGOs, the social and religious groups, to participate in this dialogue...to see that they are included," he added.
Thai activists with political and ideological differences on free trade and domestic issues with the Thai government have vowed to break through police barricades near the conference venue to express their views.
Police have told activists to congregate at a park some distance away from the summit venue, but they have refused.:
