SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korea’s president vowed Sunday not to allow the import of meat from older cattle, in hopes of quelling public anger at the government’s decision to resume beef imports from the United States.
President Lee Myung-bak’s comments came as the chief American and South Korean trade envoys launched talks in Washington aimed at resolving the dispute over the resumption of U.S. beef shipments.
“The government stance is firm that beef from cattle older than 30 months will not be brought into (South Korea) in any case,” President Lee Myung-bak said in a meeting with an opposition leader. Meet from older cattle is thought to be at greater risk of carrying mad cow disease.
Lee said he has received a positive reply from the U.S. on measures under which the American beef industry would voluntarily not ship meat from cattle older than 30 months. Lee called the voluntary restraint the most rational measure to resolve the beef dispute.
Tens of thousands of people have protested in Seoul in recent weeks, demanding that the beef import deal be renegotiated and urging the president to resign.
South Korea was the third-largest overseas market for U.S. beef until it banned imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in 2003, the first of three confirmed cases in the United States. Seoul agreed in April to reopen its market for U.S. beef, scrapping nearly all quarantine regulations.
The new agreement, which came just hours before Lee held his first summit with U.S. President George W. Bush, was widely seen as a concession aimed at getting the United States to approve a broader trade deal.
Both Seoul and Washington have repeatedly insisted that U.S.
beef is safe, citing the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.
But Lee has come under intense public fire for ignoring their concerns over the safety of U.S. beef.
Cattle older than 30 months are believed to be more susceptible to mad cow disease. Other countries restrict imports of older American beef, such as Japan that only allows meat from cattle younger than 20 months.
The entire Cabinet offered to resign last week in an apparent attempt to dampen public anger, but the late-night vigils by candlelight and streets rallies showed no signs of abating.
A crowd estimated by police at about 2,000 rallied Sunday night near the city hall and marched through central Seoul. No clashes were immediatedly reported, according to the police.
“Lee did not listen to the people’s concerns on health and there was no communication with the public,” Jo Eun-sung, an unemployed 27-year-old, as she chanted slogan “Lee Myung-bak, step down!” Mad cow disease is the common name for a brain-wasting disease in cattle called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.
Scientists believe it spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals.
In people, eating meat contaminated with BSE is linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a rare and deadly nerve disease.
