South Korea and the United States failed to bridge the gap over the quarantine inspection levels for imported beef despite a compromise offered by Seoul, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said Friday.
Negotiators from the two sides held a technical consultation meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss South Korea's quarantine standards that have effectively prevented American beef from being sold in the country.
"Our position on maintaining zero tolerance in terms of not allowing any bones or bone fragments into the country remains unchanged and we've explained this to our counterparts," said Lee Sang-kil, director general at the ministry's livestock bureau. He said Seoul also said it will continue to conduct x-ray screenings of all shipments entering the country to check for bones.
South Korea had been the third-largest importer of American beef before it imposed a ban in December 2003 following a reported case of mad cow disease in the country. Seoul agreed in January 2006 to allow a partial resumption of imports. Under the pact, only de-boned beef from cattle aged 30 months or younger could be sold in the country.
The official, however, said South Korea had offered not to reject entire shipments just because one or two individual packages contained bone fragments.
U.S. meat processing plants have sent three separate shipments of beef totaling 22.3 tons since late October. None have reached the market because bone fragments were found.
"We made the offer because it was reasonable and there had been request made by Washington in the past," the official said. If the U.S. accepted the proposal it would have effectively allowed American beef into the country since out of the more than 700 packages in the three shipments, less than 1 percent contained fragments.
He explained that the U.S. rejection of the offer was due to their objections to South Korea conducting complete screenings of all American beef, and Washington's claims that bones that are not classified as specified risk materials (SRMs) should be bought and sold on the open market. SRMs refer to brains, head bones, spinal cord marrow, backbones and intestine parts with the highest risk of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.
Lee then said the U.S. side made a counter-proposal calling on South Korea to adopt a sample testing regime for American beef, and allow companies from the two countries that sell and buy the beef to work out their own commercial arrangements that would set standards and penalties if bone fragments are found.
"This proposal was not acceptable to us since it could hurt South Korea's sovereign right to carry out quarantine inspections it believes to be necessary," the official said.
Lee added that no date has been set for the next round of the technical consultation meeting.
He said while nothing had been agreed upon, the meeting was useful in allowing a free flow of views and to remove misunderstandings. The official said negotiators did not touch on setting new standards for the size of bone fragments that would be allowed into the country.
The director general said the fundamental difference lay in divergent views on looking at non-SRM related bones and bone fragments.
South Korea maintains bones could pose health problems while the U.S. thinks they do not. Experts around the world are divided on the issue, with the World Organization for Animal Health, better known as the OIE, expected to make recommendations on this issue within the year.
The United States started an internal review of this matter last October and will submit its findings before the end of March to be reviewed by the OIE's expert panel. The international panel is then expected to share this information with member countries, including South Korea, before making its recommendations.
Seoul, Feb. 9 (Yonhap News)
S. Korea, U.S. fail to bridge gap on beef import conditions |
