South Korea said Monday it remains adamant in its demand that rice be excluded from ongoing free trade talks with the United States. An eighth round of the negotiations, which began in June last year, is scheduled to open in Seoul on Thursday. The deadline for agreement is late this month.
Rice is a potential major sticking point in the trade talks as South Korean farmers and civic groups violently oppose the opening of the market. "The government has maintained its position from the start of the negotiations that rice be excluded from South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement talks," the ministry of foreign affairs and trade said in a statement. But the ministry denied media reports that both sides agreed to exclude rice from the talks on condition that Seoul fully opens its beef market.
The Korea Times newspaper cited an unnamed ministry official as warning that a continued US demand to open the local rice market would be "a deal-breaker" in the negotiations.
Both sides have been restating their positions as the negotiations draw to an end. US negotiators must submit the deal to Congress by April 2 for a 90-day review before President George W. Bush's "fast-track" trade promotion authority expires on July 1. The foreign ministry Sunday expressed regret over the terms of a demand by some US lawmakers for the opening of the Korean car market.
Differences yet to be resolved include anti-dumping remedies and Seoul's tariff and non-tariff barriers in the auto and pharmaceutical sectors, which Washington says discriminate against US goods. Last year, 800,000 South Korean vehicles were sold in the United States while only around 3,000 US cars were sold in South Korea.
The deal, if agreed, would be the biggest free-trade agreement since the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement linking the United States, Canada and Mexico.
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