The US and South Korea worked to save a proposed free trade agreement yesterday in extended high-level talks, after failing to conclude the deal by an original US-imposed deadline.
"They're still looking at options and figuring out if they can do it or not," said Steve Norton, spokesman for the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).
South Korea's Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong and Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia, as well as the chief negotiators for the two sides, have been meeting since last Monday at a Seoul hotel to bridge gaps in contentious sectors such as autos and agriculture.
PHOTO: AP
If they succeed, the accord to slash tariffs and other barriers would be the biggest for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, and the biggest ever for South Korea.
The two sides said on Saturday morning -- after an all-night session -- that they needed more time, and agreed to finish the talks by 1am today in Seoul, which corresponds to a noon deadline yesterday in Washington.
The original US-imposed deadline was midnight on Friday in Seoul.
Concern over the fate of the effort, which began almost 10 months ago, was raised on Friday, when the White House hinted that the negotiations could fail.
Spokesman Dana Perino had described the talks as "not going well."
A USTR spokesman in Washington said on Saturday that the US must wrap up the deal by the new deadline, because that is the deadline to notify Congress that US President George W. Bush intends to sign a deal under his expiring Trade Promotion Authority.
Any final deal will be subject to approval by both Congress and South Korea's National Assembly.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed their countries' political will to reach a deal in a telephone conversation yesterday, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said.
The call follows a similar one on Thursday, in which the countries' presidents instructed negotiators to be as flexible as possible.
South Korea has refused to discuss including its 8.5 trillion won (US$9.1 billion) rice market in the deal, saying the staple food is a "sensitive sector."
Seoul has warned that it was ready to walk away from the deal if the US pushed too hard.
Seoul's chief farm negotiator suggested yesterday gaps between the two sides may be narrowing.
"The US side has paid a great attention to our situation and position, and I believe their understanding has also been greatly raised," Min Dong-seok, deputy minister for trade at the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, told reporters.
Other bottlenecks are trade in cars; Seoul's demand that goods made in a small North Korean industrial zone by South Korean companies be included in the deal; and the status of US beef, absent from South Korea markets for more than three years after mad cow disease was discovered in the US.
South Korean media have reported that the two sides may compromise if the US agrees to leave South Korean rice out of the deal in return for Seoul removing restrictions on US beef.
Norton said he had no knowledge of any such deal.
Government officials on both sides say an agreement would boost economic ties between two longtime security allies, which already do more than US$75 billion in trade a year.
The deal's South Korean opponents -- who include labor, farm and activist groups -- claim that an influx of cheaper US imports will lead to job losses and potentially damage livelihoods.
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