* Top committee chairs will influence final Doha talks
* Likely to be formally presented Feb. 22
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Canada and Nigeria's ambassadors to the World Trade Organisation are likely to take on key roles in the group as it pushes for a new trade deal, diplomats said on Wednesday.
Canada's WTO ambassador, John Gero, is likely to become the next chairman of the general council, which runs the global trade arbiter between ministerial conferences, they said.
Gero, an economist who was Canada's intellectual property negotiator in the North American Free Trade Agreement and its chief negotiator at the WTO, has presided over the dispute settlement body, which rules on multi-billion-dollar trade rows as commercial tensions have picked up in the wake of the crisis.
The person who is likely to replace Gero is Nigeria's veteran ambassador, Yonov Frederick Agah.
Agah, who has represented Nigeria at the WTO since 2005, is one of its most experienced diplomats, having headed several of its main bodies, such as the councils for trade in goods, services and intellectual property and the trade policy review body.
Political leaders have called for the WTO to conclude the Doha round to open up world trade, now in its ninth year, in 2010. If that happens Gero would play a key role in organising the meetings of ministers to seal the deal.
WTO members are due to take stock in late March on whether a deal is possible this year, and already many negotiators believe the 2010 deadline, like many before it, will slip.
Mario Matus, Chile's WTO ambassador who currently chairs the general council, is sounding out members on the nominations, which are usually agreed by consensus.
He will present them formally at the next council meeting on Feb. 22 and is likely to run the final list past an informal meeting of ambassadors pencilled in for Feb. 17, officials said. (Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)