New Delhi: Cancun appears headed for a fiasco like Seattle, with Tokyo World Trade Centre (WTO) mini-ministerial hitting "roadblocks", as developing countries rallied around India, which resorted to tough posturing on contentious agriculture, Singapore, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and public health issues.

"The road to Cancun is riddled with roadblocks and potholes. It is for the developed countries to win trust back, so that the people in the developing countries can see some tangible benefit of a multilateral forum," Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters.

Jaitley, who returned on February 17 after leading the Indian delegation at the three-day ministerial at Tokyo, said the development agenda laid out at Doha should not be diluted and that issues pertaining to TRIPS and public health, special and differential treatment, implementation issues should be addressed upfront.

On agriculture, he said it was important for developed countries to bring down their subsidies, while allowing the developing countries to calibrate their own tariffs.

"Our tariffs have a direct impact on the lives of the farmers… we can't permit social unrest," he said underlining the need for improving the Harbinson's draft proposal on agriculture to address the concerns of the developing nations.

PTI