| |
WASHINGTON: US and South Korean officials renewed talks Wednesday as part of an effort to salvage a US beef import deal that has run aground due to massive protests in Seoul.
South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-Hoon and his US counterpart Susan Schwab were holding talks for a fourth day late Wednesday after a two-hour "informal meeting" earlier in the day, Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US trade representative, told AFP.
The two officials had held "intense discussions" on Tuesday in the US capital, Hamel said, adding: "Both sides remain committed to finding a mutually agreeable path forward."
South Korea halted imports of US beef in 2003 after the first confirmed case of mad cow disease in the United States, and the two countries hammered out a deal in April to resume all shipments ahead of a wider free-trade pact.
But a wave of protests has put new President Lee Myung-Bak, whose approval rating has plummeted quickly since he took office in February, under pressure to scrap the agreement.
Both governments see the risk of mad-cow disease as minimal, and the deal was meant to clear the way for a free-trade agreement that was signed a year ago but not yet ratified by either nation.
But activists, stirring up outrage in Internet chat rooms, have drawn tens of thousands of protesters into the streets, pushing Lee's new conservative government into a crisis that has deepened almost daily.
A militant South Korean union confederation on Tuesday threatened to stage a general strike next month. The talks in Washington are aimed at revising the beef deal and finding a way for Lee's government to emerge from the political crisis.
Lee is meanwhile planning a second apology to the nation for the political turmoil caused by the imports deal and that statement could come Thursday if the Washington talks wrap up by then, a presidential official said in Seoul.
The president will personally explain the outcome of the negotiations to revise the agreement "and ask for greater public understanding," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Last month the embattled president apologized for failing to consider concerns about the imports and promised to suspend shipments if there is a public health risk.
To placate public anger, South Korea now wants US beef exporters to voluntarily agree not to ship cattle more than 30 months old, which are believed to be a bigger risk for mad-cow disease.
But it also wants some form of US government guarantee to back up the pledge from private exporters, something that has become a sticking point in the talks -- in part because of global rules on free trade already in effect.
South Korea was once the third largest market for US beef, with imports worth 850 million US dollars a year before the 2003 ban.
Since 2003, two more mad cow cases have been discovered in the United States.
But US officials say no one has ever contracted the human form of mad-cow disease -- known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) -- from eating American beef. - AFP/ac
|
