December 4, 2006

Seoul says beef row will not affect FTA talks with US

South Korea would not let Seoul's rejection of US beef shipments affect their talks on free trade agreement (FTA), said a top South Korean official.

The beef matter would not complicate this round of negotiations as the beef quarantine issue was not a subject on the negotiating table, clarified South Korea's chief negotiator for free trade talks with the US adding their rejections had a scientific logic.

The two countries would sit for a fifth round of free trade talks.

South Korea's Agriculture Ministry recently rejected a second shipment of US chilled meat after discovering three bone pieces in violation of a US-South Korea agreement to resume beef trade.

South Korea, once the world's third-largest buyer of US beef, has agreed to import only boneless meat from the US, ending a three-year ban after an outbreak of mad cow disease in that country.

Following the rejection, US agriculture secretary Mike Johanns accused the South Korean government of "inventing a reason to reject the meat."

Beef is one of the major farm products that the US hopes to cover under the FTA it plans to sign with South Korea by mid-2007 at the latest.