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SEOUL : South Korea's president Thursday accused opponents of a free trade pact of spreading scare stories about the dangers of US beef.
Lee Myung-Bak's government is grappling with a series of online and street protests citing mad cow disease concerns, following its decision to resume US beef imports.
Opening up the beef market is a key precondition for US legislative approval of a wider free trade agreement signed last year.
"I suspect the people (spreading fears of mad cow disease) are the opponents of the Korea-US free trade agreement," Lee told reporters, while pledging to protect people's health.
"The US won't be able to force-feed (dangerous beef) to the Korean people," Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.
Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo, in a nationally televised press conference, repeated government pledges to suspend imports if a new mad cow case emerges in the US.
Seoul and Washington say the mad cow risk is infinitesimal. But thousands of people, many of them apparently responding to Internet scare campaigns and a recent TV current affairs programme, have staged candlelit protests.
Han urged Koreans to "feel safe. Our government will protect people's health more than anything else, whatever the circumstances.
"If a new mad cow disease breaks out in the United States and endangers our people's health, we will suspend the imports," he said.
Han also said South Korea would closely monitor negotiations between the US and other countries on beef imports.
"We will demand revisions to the deal with the United States anytime, if new developments happen in US negotiations with other countries."
Under its agreement with Washington, Seoul cannot stop beef imports immediately if any new mad cow case is discovered. It would have to wait until the World Organisation for Animal Health revises its position that US beef is safe.
Korean officials acknowledge that any immediate suspension could cause trade friction. But they argue they would have the right to act immediately under international trade rules on the grounds that there is a grave health risk.
Visiting US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte met Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan Thursday and held talks on the issue.
"I asked for the US to play a role in calming the people's worries," Yu was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying. "He said the US government will do everything possible."
Upon arrival Wednesday, Negroponte insisted that US beef is safe.
"We would hope that as you discuss this issue, the discussions be based on facts and not on imagined problems or allegations that do not have any scientific foundations," he told reporters.
Richard Raymond, undersecretary for food safety at the US Department of Agriculture, said Sunday that no one in the US has ever been diagnosed with the human form of mad cow disease because they ate American beef.
South Korea was once the third-largest market for US beef, with imports worth 850 million dollars a year before a 2003 total ban over fears of mad cow disease.
It eased the ban in 2006 but admitted only limited cuts of beef. The latest deal, to go into force in mid-May, admits virtually all cuts of beef, except for what are known as specified risk materials.
- AFP /ls
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