UNITED NATIONS, July 28: The UN member states failed on Friday to agree to a document aimed at regulating the multi-billion-dollar arms trade. However, they agreed to hold more talks on the matter.

Many member nations accused the United States of blocking an agreement at the end of the month-long negotiations in New York by asking for more time.

Responding to the criticism, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that while Washington had wanted to conclude the negotiations with a treaty, “more time is a reasonable request for such a complex and critical issue”.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “disappointed” that the member states failed to clinch an agreement after years of preparatory work and four weeks of negotiations, calling it a “setback”. But he said he was encouraged that the nations agreed to continue pursuing a treaty, and he pledged his “robust” support in this regard.

Scott Stedjan, a senior policy adviser at Oxfam America that fights poverty and other injustices, blamed the impasse on a lack of “political courage” on the part of US President Barack Obama.

The negotiators adjourned after meeting for four weeks with the goal of completing an agreement that proponents said would have restricted the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that fuel armed conflicts and mass killings around the world.

Approval by all 193 members of the United Nations was required.

“There is no consensus and the meeting is over,” said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, which sponsored the conference.

Treaty supporters, led by activist groups such as Amnesty International and Oxfam America, expressed anger at the failure after bouts of optimism that a draft of the treaty circulated earlier would satisfy American concerns, notably its possible infringement on the Second Amendment right to bear arms — a delicate issue during a presidential election year in the United States.

They contended that the treaty’s language specified that it would have no impact on such rights. But gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association said the treaty remained “seriously flawed”.