A week of tense trade talks started on Monday in Geneva with most sides professing willingness to compromise but saying that others had to take the lead.

The meeting, which brings together several dozen ministers in the so-called Doha round of talks, represents a gamble by Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organisation’s director-general, that big negotiating divisions can be bridged in a few days. Similar meetings in the previous two years ended in acrimonious collapse.