Discussions at a WTO meeting here aimed at jump-starting stalled global trade talks centered Tuesday on what flexibility the United States and the European Union might show on farm subsidies, as protests continued in the streets.

Meanwhile, a forum of international farm leaders pressed the trade ministers from 25 countries here to ensure any trade accords preserve some protections to sustain and improve local farmers' livelihoods.

The World Trade Organization meeting at a barricaded downtown Montreal hotel is a major thrust to find consensus on the divisive issues of farm subsidies (domestic and external) and medicine for poor countries that could breathe new life into the latest round of free trade talks.

The Doha Round of talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, has made little progress at nearly its mid-way point, with none of the deadlines fixed for negotiation modalities respected.

The informal talks in Montreal -- the third so-called "mini-ministerial" this year -- comes shortly before the WTO Summit in Cancun, Mexico in September.

Ministers and WTO officials were meeting Tuesday behind closed doors to try to hammer out how to progressively reduce export subsidies and decide on how to provide access for developing countries' products to enter rich nations' markets.

But all eyes were on whether the European Union and the United States would take further steps to reduce agricultural subsidies -- seen as crucial to moving the global trade talks forward.

"The subsidy issue is a very critical issue in tariff negotiations," said Raul Montemayor, a manager with the Philippines' Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives.

"While we understand that developed countries may require the subsidies to preserve and support their own agriculture, we are also telling them that they should subsidize their farmers but not at the expense of farmers in developing countries.

"And to the extent the subsidies start hurting farmers in developing countries, our farmers should be able to protect themselves through tariffs and other forms of trade remedies," he told AFP.

Farming organizations from some 30 countries in a statement pressed the trade ministers meeting here until Wednesday to seek a "new direction" in the agricultural talks to "improve farmers' livelihoods in both importing and exporting countries."

Philip Kiriro, the chairman of Kenya's National Farmers Union, told AFP: "What we are waiting for is for the US and EU to get a deal on subsidies."

WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi on Monday pressed both to show flexibility, but there were no signs that any new developments in that area.

Montemayor said developing countries were not concerned about a top-down approach decided only by the EU and United States.

"I think the developing countries now are more assertive. In the WTO, it takes just one country to let the whole thing collapse. We're still thinking that they will have to address the concerns of developing countries who want an agreement. They cannot just keep them on the sidelines this time," he said.

In the meantime, ministers from developing countries here were looking at ways to contain trade distorting effects of subsidies and how to protect their local markets dependent on agriculture for their food security, Kiriro said.

As the ministers met inside the Montreal hotel, outside a few hundred protesters -- including some wearing bandanas wrapped around their faces -- took to the streets in another march Tuesday aimed at disrupting the talks.

Monday, 238 people were arrested after an early morning protest turned violent, with outlets of two symbols of US business -- Gap and Burger King -- targeted, and some luxury vehicles vandalized.