Top S.K. trade negotiator sees deal by March
Hankyoreh, Korea
Top S.K. trade negotiator sees deal by March
U.S. has said FTA will be ready by year end
14 September 2006
South Korea’s top trade negotiator Kim Jong-hoon said that there should be a "tangible" agreement by March next year in the ongoing trade negotiations with the United States.
"Given that the U.S. administration’s Trade Promotion Authority expires in June next year, I think that we should, theoretically, draw up a tangible agreement by the end of March," Kim told lawmakers at a committee he attended to brief the results of the recent trade negotiations with Washington.
South Korea and the United States held their third round of talks on a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) in Seattle last week. Both sides have failed to find common ground in key trade areas, leaving the agenda to next month’s fourth round of negotiations.
At the committee, Kim told lawmakers that his U.S. negotiating partners promised to complete negotiation by the end of this year. But he cautioned that the mood during the negotiations has not developed enough to clearly see an end to the talks.
As for concerns over a possible ’backdoor deal’ in other sensitive areas in order to pursue an FTA - issues such as the transfer of wartime military command from the U.S. to South Korea and how to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis - Kim said that "there is no such possibility."
Some lawmakers have raised suspicion that the recent decision to resume U.S. beef imports might be a precondition for an FTA with the U.S. Kim dismissed such charges, saying that the resumption of beef imports had been a long-standing trade issue.
