Brussels, 08/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - There is a fresh glimmer of hope in the interminable Doha Round that was launched in 2001: on the sidelines of the Cairns Group meeting in Bali on 9 June, new US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma have agreed to relaunch the multilateral talks. Sharma said that there was a commitment to work together in the negotiations to bring the Doha Round to a successful conclusion. None of the obstacles was insurmountable, he said. It is now up to the other partners to reach agreement on the key chapter that resulted in the failure of the WTO ministerial meeting in July 2008 - the special safeguard mechanism for agriculture in developing countries, an issue on which Australia, Brazil and the EU are mediating between the US and India to try to reach an agreement on world trade liberalisation arrangements. Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said that the Bali meeting had brought the resumption of intense negotiations at both technical and political levels to relaunch the Round which is deadlocked on a number of important North-South differences on agricultural and industrial issues. The Cairns Group, a coalition of 19 agricultural exporting countries, including South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia and New Zealand, centred around Australia, was critical of the aid measures to the dairy sector recently granted by the US and the EU. (E.H./transl.rt)