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President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday sought to calm the roiling debate over the resumption of U.S. beef imports, saying there was no ground for concerns that U.S. beef was unsafe because of mad cow disease, and offering to prove his point by eating some.
"What country would import beef that is a threat to its own people's health? Could the U.S. force us to eat it (if was unsafe)? Would our people buy it?" he said. "Importers would never import such beef if they thought nobody would buy it. Nobody would import beef if it posed a threat to the public."
Lee was speaking at Chunchugwan press hall of Cheong Wa Dae over a lunch of "samgyetang" (chicken ginseng soup) with journalists. The lunch was hurriedly arranged to promote consumption of chicken, which has declined sharply due to recent bird flu outbreaks. But the main topic of discussion switched to beef.
Lee said that the government would be closely monitoring the beef imports and would take quick action to halt them should any problems arise. Nobody could force Korea to accept unsafe beef, he said. "If mad cow disease should occur (in the U.S.), what country in the world would import its beef? I don't think Japan or Taiwan would import it, either," Lee added.
"When the (Korea-U.S.) beef deal was concluded, I thought the debate would center on how to support Korean cattle farms. Instead, the public debate has switched to the mad cow scare," Lee said. The opponents of the beef deal are the same people who oppose the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, he suggested.
Lee rejected recent calls by some members of the ruling camp for a shakeup of the presidential office to hold officials responsible for the mad cow disease scare. Lee said, "We've had a hard training this time and will need to repeat the process if we reorganize."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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