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SEOUL: South Korea's main opposition party downscaled a sit-in at parliament on Monday after scuffles with security guards left dozens of people injured.
The Democratic Party (DP) said it was also ready to negotiate a deal with the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) on ending the row - primarily over a free trade agreement with the United States - which has crippled the national assembly for weeks.
About 150 security guards, acting on the order of Speaker Kim Hyung-O, moved Saturday to break up the sit-in by opposition legislators.
DP members agreed to end the protest and remove a barricade at the entrance of the main parliamentary hall late Sunday after the speaker promised not to take further action until Thursday.
But they refused to end their main sit-in inside the hall.
The three-day scuffle left 53 security guards and two opposition legislators injured.
Security guards handed 19 protesters from the minor Democratic Labor Party to police early Monday, on charges of violence.
The row began on December 18 when the GNP began procedures to ratify the US-South Korean free trade agreement which was signed last year and awaits ratification by legislators.
The opposition, which has 83 seats in the 299-member legislature compared with the GNP's 172, says South Korea should not ratify the pact before the US Congress does.
Opposition lawmakers insist that the deal be given another review.
The GNP sees the agreement as necessary to stimulate the slowing economy and argues that approval by Seoul will encourage the US Congress to move faster.
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and US President George W. Bush agreed during an April summit to push for approval of the FTA this year.
For the US, the deal with South Korea would be its biggest since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994.
Some estimates say it could boost two-way trade, worth US$78.4 billion last year, by up to US$20 billion in coming years.
However US president-elect Barack Obama has called the deal "badly flawed" and said it does too little to narrow a huge imbalance in the auto trade in Seoul's favour.
South Korea has ruled out any renegotiation.
- AFP/yb
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