The crucial WTO mini-ministerial appears to be heading for a failure as India threatened to walk away from the meeting convened to thrash out thorny farm and industrial tariff issues, with the US refusing to agree for wider cuts in farm subsidies.

Trade ministers from about 60 countries began their talks on Thursday to make a last-ditch effort to formulate ways for cutting agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs in a bid to revive the stalled WTO negotiations after the Hong Kong ministerial conference in December last year.

The WTO's 149 divided members, who have repeatedly missed their targets for a deal, are under mounting pressure to complete the round by December 2006 as per the deadline fixed in Hong Kong last year.

"I'll ring up my travel agent and get a flight home," curt came the reply from Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath when asked about New Delhi's response if Washington refused to offer deeper cuts on farm subsidies.

European Union Trade Commissioner's spokesman Peter Power said it was "extremely unlikely" to have an agreement this weekend, as the positions were 'too far apart' among the G6 countries of US, EU, India, Brazil, Japan and Australia -- the key players in trade negotiations.

Top officials from the G6 met last evening ahead of talks expected to last several days at the Geneva base of WTO, which were called in an effort to revive the organisation's struggling Doha Round trade negotiations.

Earlier, EU trade chief Peter Mandelson and officials from Brazil and India, pressed the US to offer deeper cuts in its farm subsidies. However, the US countered that EU must move first, by slashing its import duties on farm goods.

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