South Korea may suspend imports of beef from US

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's president on Wednesday said his government would immediately halt imports of U.S. beef if it endangered public health.

"If the opening of the beef market results in a threat to the people's health, we will immediately suspend imports and work out countermeasures," President Lee Myung-bak told provincial officials, according to South Korean pool reports.

Fears of mad cow disease have spread among many South Koreans before the resumption of U.S. beef imports later this month. Thousands of activists, students and citizens have staged candlelight vigils in recent days calling on the government to scrap an agreement with Washington to restart imports.

Seoul suspended imports of U.S. beef in late 2003 after mad cow disease was discovered in a cow in Washington state. It resumed limited imports in April last year, but put them on hold again in October when a shipment arrived containing banned animal parts.

Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun told a parliamentary committee that his ministry would halt U.S. beef imports if a new case of mad cow disease was discovered in the United States.

The comments appeared to conflict with the beef deal Seoul signed with Washington last month, under which it agreed not to immediately halt imports if a new case of mad cow disease was discovered in the U.S. Instead, Seoul said it would only halt imports if the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health downgraded its safety rating for American cattle.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who arrived Wednesday in South Korea, asserted there were no problems with American beef.

"I guess I would say my view is that American beef is an excellent product. It's very safe," said Negroponte, who flew here as part a three-nation Asian trip. He said the South's government and people should base discussions of the beef issue "on scientific facts and not on imagined problems."

Last month's deal to reopen South Korea's market, including the scrapping of nearly all quarantine regulations previously imposed to guard against mad cow disease, came just hours before President Lee held his first talks with President Bush. The pact was widely seen as a concession aimed at getting Congress to approve a broader trade deal.

Imports of U.S. beef are expected to resume in mid-May and expand in stages.

Scientists believe mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals. In humans, eating meat products contaminated with the illness is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal malady.