On the eve of a WTO meeting of ministers, President Barack Obama's trade envoy Ron Kirk stressed that Washington remained committed to bringing the elusive Doha Round of trade negotiations to a successful conclusion.

"The United States engages with other economies and plays a leadership role at the World Trade Organization in order to boost American exports and grow the well-paid jobs Americans want and need," Kirk said in a statement.

"This ministerial is an important opportunity for the WTO?s 153 members to take stock of the trading system overall, to build on the foundation of our rules-based trading system, and to consider the potential of a balanced and ambitious conclusion to the Doha Round of world trade negotiations," he added.

Kirk's remarks came as some developing nations indirectly blamed the United States for holding up the Doha negotiation process in the run-up to the three-day ministerial meeting.

Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim pointed to "one country which is stopping us from moving forward," in an apparent reference to the United States.

Another Latin American diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, was more explicit, saying: "We clearly lack an explicit position from one of the most important members of the negotiations. We are of course talking about the United States."

He added that the WTO ministerial meeting "should pressure" US President Barack Obama's administration to take a deeper engagement on trade talks.

The Obama administration, grappling with domestic problems such as health care and the war in Afghanistan and facing a Congress largely hostile to trade liberalisation, has not put concrete trade reforms on the table, analysts say.

"If the Obama Administration wants to have a significant proactive trade policy, it will need to persuade the Congress to renew fast-track authority at least for the WTO negotiations, so that it can attempt to salvage the Doha Round," said economist Marcus Noland of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.

However, some diplomats said Kirk had been active in Doha negotiations, albeit in a low-key fashion.

He has been holding low profile but direct talks with key US trading partners, including India and Japan, in additional to multilateral meetings to push the Doha Round forward, the diplomats said.

These talks were aimed at clarifying issues and bridging gaps, particularly with regard to market openings, one diplomat said.

At the same time, Washington wants to cut a deal on the lucrative services sector as the Doha Round gets bogged down by disagreements on agriculture and manufacturing issues.

"We have said flat out that there will be no deal without a solid result on services which would result in new market opportunities, but we believe that a positive outcome is still achievable," Kirk said last month.

World leaders have set a 2010 target to conclude the Doha process, launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001.

With little progress in negotiations, WTO chief Pascal Lamy recently warned that "it will be difficult to get to 2010 without a serious acceleration of pace."

While previous ministerial meetings have been venues for governments to make detailed offers and counter-offers, the WTO's 153 member-states have decided that Doha is not officially on the agenda this time in Geneva.

Ministers are instead expected to stress their overall commitment to completing the round, even though such pledges have been made over the years and deadlines repeatedly missed.

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