hankyoreh

South Korea sees the resolution of a beef trade spat with the United States as a key to winning U.S.

Congressional approval of a free trade agreement that the two countries signed last June, a Seoul official said Monday.

"The Bush administration has made it clear it is impossible to submit the deal for congressional approval, and the Congress also repeated that it would not ratify the deal, unless a beef trade spat is resolved," said Lee Hye-min who served as a deputy chief negotiator for the free trade talks with the United States.

Beef, a product which was not included in the free trade pact, has become a sticking point as the U.S. pressed South Korea to fully open its market. The U.S. Congress repeated that there would be not approval of the free trade pact with Seoul, signed in June last year, unless the beef issue is addressed.

Seoul has already submitted the deal for parliamentary ratification in the fall. South Korea and the U.S. held a series of meetings to resolve the beef trade spat, but failed to make any tangible progress.

South Korea banned U.S. beef in 2003 after discovery of a case of mad cow disease at an American cattle farm. It partially lifted the ban in 2006, only agreeing to import certain cuts from cattle of a certain age.

The transition team of South Korea's President-elect Lee Myung-bak, who will take office on Feb. 25, indicated earlier this month that his administration will speed up the process of resolving the beef issue.

The free trade accord, if ratified, will knock down tariff and non-tariff barriers between the world's largest and 11th-largest economies, which did US$74 billion in two-way trade in 2006.

For the U.S., a deal with South Korea would be its biggest since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada in 1994.


SEOUL, Feb. 4 (Yonhap)