U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday in hopes of convincing New Delhi to reconsider its position in blocking a WTO deal, hours before the Trade Facilitation Deal was to be signed.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who accompanied Kerry during the strategic talks, said he was hopeful the meeting would be successful.

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But Jaitley was firm in reiterating India's stance. Unless the WTO would step up efforts to resolve India's concerns on its food stockpiling and subsidy program - which is in violation of WTO rules - it would not sign the trade agreement, according to Reuters.

Last December, the WTO had sought to address India's concerns by giving it until 2017 to work out a solution on its food subsidy program and subsequently, to sign an agreement by then.

But New Delhi insisted that the July 31 deadline for the trade deal be delayed and signed at the same time with its food subsidy program agreement.

Kerry warned India against the ultimatum it posed to the WTO. He said India may lose not only the trade deal, but also the food subsidy program which it seeks to resolve.

While WTO's director-general Robert Azevedo worked to avert the crisis, several diplomats had already started to informally discuss the possibility of entering into another agreement that would exclude India, according to an unnamed source cited by Reuters.

An Australian official with knowledge of the discussion said WTO diplomats from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Norway and the U.S. were among the 12 or so WTO members who had participated in the informal talks in Geneva on Wednesday.

He added that although details would still have to be worked out, a "credible core group" had already been assigned that would be ready to start the negotiations without India when the WTO representatives return from the summer break.

WTO trade diplomats previously expressed reluctance in pushing through with a customs deal that would exclude India, partly because of the nature of the deal which they said would be hard to exclude a lone free rider and partly because the existing deal required India's cooperation and would need to be amended.

TagsJohn Kerry, New Delhi, WTO, trade deal, Trade facilitation, Penny Pritzker, strategic talks, food subsidy program, WTO violations, WTO deal, Australia, EU, European Union, US, Norway, Geneva, Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman, Robert Azevedo, World Trade Organization