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South Korea will hold more talks with the United States this week on potential revisions to a free trade agreement (FTA) aimed at reflecting Washington's new trade policy guidelines, a senior negotiator said Monday.

The two sides ended negotiations in early April, but the U.S. requested South Korea to modify parts of the deal to comply with tougher labor and environmental standards to help get the deal approved by the Democratic-led U.S. Congress.

Last week, South Korea and the U.S. completed two days of talks in Seoul. Washington had called for Seoul to finish the proposed revisions by the end of this month, ahead of the deal's expected signing. However, South Korean officials said it wouldn't rush to accept the U.S. request.

From Monday through Wednesday, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong is to visit Washington for the talks, according to Ambassador Kim Jong-hoon while speaking to lawmakers at a special parliamentary committee on the South Korea-U.S. FTA.

"The government will determine its final position after reviewing the results of Kim's visit to the U.S.," said Ambassador Kim, South Korea's chief negotiator to the free trade talks.

Kim reiterated that the two sides will sign the agreement on June 30 regardless of the revisions.

Both sides must sign the agreement on June 30 before U.S. President George W. Bush's authority to "fast track" any such agreement expires. The authority allows the U.S. Congress to pass the deal with a simple yes-or-no vote without amendments.

South Korea is the U.S.' seventh-largest trading partner, with two-way trade valued at $79 billion last year. If ratified, the deal could generate $20 billion in bilateral trade in the coming years.

The agreement must be approved by the legislatures in both nations to go into effect.

While the deal's ratification process is expected to face significant hurdles on both sides, some analysts predict that the two legislatures are likely to ultimately pass it.

"Recent hostile remarks by U.S. Democratic lawmakers against the South Korea-U.S. FTA are seen as a political rhetoric against Republicans ahead of the U.S. presidential election," said Sung Han-kyung, a research fellow at the state-run at Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

A major obstacle to the deal's possible approval in the U.S. has been virtually cleared because South Korea is opening its market to U.S. beef, Sung said.
SEOUL, June 25 (Yonhap News)