IGLESIAS TO CHAIR GATT MINISTERIAL MEET.

Jun 12, 1986

IGLESIAS TO CHAIR GATT MINISTERIAL MEET.

GENEVA, JUNE 10 (IFDA) -- The Uruguayan Foreign Minister, Enrique Iglesias will preside over the GATT Ministerial meeting to be held at Punta del Este, Uruguay, beginning on September 15, a GATT spokesperson announced Tuesday.

The nature of the Punta del Este meeting, whether it will be an ad hoc meeting or a meeting of the Contracting Parties, has not however been decided, the spokesperson added.

The decision on Iglesias chairing the meeting was reported to have been unanimously agreed to at a meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Ministerial meeting.

Other GATT sources said that the decision on Iglesias chairing the September 15 meeting was irrespective of the nature of the September 15 meeting, and noted a previous precedent - a meeting of GATT CPS in Tokyo was chaired by the Japanese Foreign Minister and not the chairman of the GATT CPS in 1959.

The spokesperson said that the nature of the participation at the Punta del Este meeting - whether it would be open only to GATT CPS, or also other countries applying GATT provisionally, seeking accession to GATT, applying GATT the facto, and observers - would also be decided at this week's meeting of the Preparatory Committee.

But other GATT sources said that this was unlikely, since several of the participants have insisted that such a decision could be taken only after a decision on the nature of the Punta del Este meeting itself.

The Preparatory Committee members are reported to have discussed at informal sessions some of the issues and agenda or the new round, and possible draft formulations, but without any progress of substance, GATT sources added.