|
The U.S. chief negotiator in trade talks with Korea, Wendy Cutler, has hinted her government wants to renegotiate part of the just-concluded bilateral free trade agreement. But the Korean government says there will be no additional talks except to fine-tune technical terms. At a seminar sponsored by the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Cutler said that there was consultation going on between the U.S. administration and Congress over labor and other issues in the FTA. "We made Korea aware of these discussions, and once the discussions are concluded, we will then be in a position to figure out with Korea the best way to move forward."
 |
|
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon (left) and Kim Jong-hoon (right), the chief negotiator in free-trade talks with the U.S., enter the Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee room in the National Assembly on Thursday.
|
 |
|
But Prime Minister Han Duck-soo brushed off the hint on Thursday, saying, "We can¡¯t accept a proposal for a renegotiation of the FTA with the U.S." In the National Assembly¡¯s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said, "We can't completely rule out that the U.S. might propose a renegotiation. But we have made it clear that there won't be additional talks. We are of the view that the talks have now come to an end."
Song also said that Korea may accept a proposal to fine-tune provisions in the agreement, but not one to revise key parts. The Democrats, the majority party in the U.S. Congress, are pressuring the Bush administration to insert provisions such as a ban on child labor and reckless environmental destruction for exports into FTAs with foreign countries.
Under pressure from the Democrats, the administration has recently asked Peru, Panama and Colombia, with whom it has concluded FTAs, for renegotiations to reflect U.S. views in the labor and environmental sectors.
Korean officials interpreted Cutler's statement as not so much hinting at a proposal for a renegotiation but as aimed at pacifying the American automobile and meat industries or politicians. "U.S. Congress is not seriously raising the issue to the extent that it is threatening not to ratify the agreement,¡± a senior official in the Ministry of Finance and Economy said. Jung Young-jin of the law firm Yulchon said, "Even if the U.S. administration were to demand a renegotiation in some sectors at the request of U.S. Congress, it would be realistically impossible to have additional talks considering that the two sides have struck a balance in their give-and-take in thousands of sectors over the past 14 months."
But the issue could flare up if Congress intensifies pressure on the White House. A senior South Korean government official said, "We might possibly consider (a renegotiation) if the U.S. Congress gets serious to the point that it could vote down the agreement."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
