French President Jacques Chirac asked Thursday in a personal letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso for "negotiation reorientation" of Doha round talks, Chirac's office said.

Chirac asked that "the negotiations continue in a spirit of transparency ... a reorientation in order to come back to the spirit of Doha and to reach in 2006 a balanced deal that is acceptable to France," Chirac's office said.

The French presidency said that it was "a personal letter to Barroso and not a official step".

According to diplomatic sources in Brussels, France has asked Straw to convoke a meeting of the 25 EU member states next week to debate on the issue.

Agriculture subsidies are in the center of the talks on the liberation of international trade, known as Doha round of the World Trade Organization (WTO). They would be finalized in two months at a ministers meeting of the 148-member organization in Hong Kong.

Source: Xinhua