The United States has no intention to renegotiate a recent deal with South Korea on beef trade, a high-level U.S. official said Wednesday.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner told reporters that the United States has "national protocols that we have negotiated with the Korean government, and we do not intend to renegotiate those protocols."
He remains adamant that the deal not be changed, but in an earlier interview with Dow Jones Tuesday, he said the U.S. government would not stand in the way of U.S. producers proposing to label their beef to reflect the age of the cattle that the beef came from.
"We have said it's not our business to interfere with ... private importers in South Korea developing their own standards," Conner said.
"And if U.S. suppliers want to supply that product by those specifications, that's a private commercial transaction that we don't intend to interfere with and have no opposition to," he said.
At an April summit in Washington, South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak struck a deal with U.S. President George W. Bush to reopen a beef market shut down over fears of mad cow disease in the United States.
The deal is expected to be implemented in June, which sparked strong opposition and brought massive protests in South Korea.
Lee called Bush last Sunday, said only U.S. beef from cattle under 30 months old shall be allowed to export to South Korea.
Cattle older than 30 months are considered to be more susceptible to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease.
A South Korean delegation is visiting Washington and urging the United States to renegotiate the deal.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Han Seung-soo and the entire South Korean cabinet offered to resign to take responsibility for the intensifying political turmoil triggered by the beef deal.
South Korea was the third-largest overseas customer for U.S. beef until it banned imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in 2003.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article