hankyoreh

South Korea and the United States will discuss the details next week of a visa waiver program (VWP), which would allow Korean citizens a visa-free trip to American soil, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

"During the third round of VWP consultations from Jan. 30-31 in Washington, the two sides will focus on fine-tuning a related memorandum of understanding on the basis of the results of previous discussions," the ministry said in a press release.

Senior officials from both sides will also review the implementation of requirements for the new VWP membership and discuss a concrete timetable, it added.

South Korea, as one of the largest sources of students and travelers to the U.S., has long sought to join the program.

Visitors from countries on the VWP list can enter and stay in the U.S. without visas for up to 90 days. Twenty-seven nations, mostly European countries, currently benefit from the program.

The U.S. has not admitted any new countries to the VWP since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

South Korea will be represented by Kim Bong-hyun, director-general of the consular bureau at the Foreign Ministry, at next week's talks. His U.S. counterpart will be Richard C.

Barth, deputy assistant secretary for policy development of the Homeland Security Department.

The top U.S. consular official in Seoul asked South Koreans to have some patience.

"It will take some time. I anticipate that the visa waiver program will be available for Korean citizens at the very earliest in late 2008 or early 2009," Julia R. Stanley, consul general of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency. "I think it would be very prudent to say early 2009 because there is considerable work to be done."


SEOUL, Jan. 22 (Yonhap)