Inside US Trade October 19, 2001
The government of Qatar this week stepped up pressure on selected members of the World Trade Organization to oppose any effort for moving the next ministerial to another location due to perceived security threats. In letters delivered to these members, Qatar warns that a decision to move the ministerial is an affront to the Arab world and emphasizes that it does not harbor terrorists, sources said.
The demarches also criticize Singapore for what Qatar charges was an offer to serve as alternative host of the meeting still scheduled for Nov. 9 to 13. But Singaporean officials this week insisted that they had not offered to host the meeting in order to take it away from Qatar, but rather offered an alternative location if there was a consensus view that the ministerial should be moved from Qatar.
This criticism of Singapore's offer by Qatar makes it harder for the ministerial to be moved to Singapore now, one trade diplomat speculated. Mexico and Switzerland are the other countries that have been informally approached as potential hosts of the ministerial, he said.
But another source speculated that the short time available to set up an alternative location made it possible that the business of the ministerial would be achieved in a special General Council session in Geneva attended by senior officials from capitals along with selected ministers. This source pointed out that a General Council session can be held at the request of the chair while a ministerial must be held with the consensus of all WTO members. This could accommodate the U.S. and EU desire not to have the dates for the ministerial pushed back.
Officials in Geneva are waiting for a clear statement from the U.S. on whether or not its security concerns would rule out a ministerial in Qatar. Officials acknowledge that the situation is delicate given the U.S. effort to garner support among Arab countries for the war in Afghanistan and is complicated by the desire not to give too much lead time for the location of the ministerial because of security concerns. At the same time, the absence of clear signals from the U.S. has led to the current diplomatic tiff.
Informal talk about moving the ministerial from Qatar because of the on-going U.S. bombing in Afghanistan came to the forefront at a weekend meeting of selected trade ministers in Singapore, sources said. In an Oct. 15 news conference following the meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick publicly acknowledged that the ministerial may not take place in Qatar.
Ministers attending the weekend session to prepare for the ministerial agreed that the Qatari government has done a "fantastic job" to prepare the meeting, including taking security measures, Zoellick said. But ministers also recognized the uncertainty surrounding the meeting since nobody knows what is going to happen in the region over the next few weeks, he said. These issues must be weighed as WTO members decide what to do about the location of the ministerial.
[T]he common view was that we need to go forward with this ministerial, in one location or the other," Zoellick said of the Singapore meeting.
According to Zoellick, the Qatari trade minister would go back to his Cabinet and report back to the WTO. But the Qatari trade minister signaled in Geneva this week that his government has no intention of backing down as the host of the ministerial, trade officials said. When the issue of moving the ministerial was raised at an informal General Council held in Geneva at the heads of delegation level, the Qatari minister insisted the ministerial would be held in his country on the originally scheduled dates, sources said. The General Council was held to brief all WTO members about the informal Singapore meeting.:
