01/23/07 Korean Free Talks and U.S. beef

American Rancher January 23, 2007 The latest round of U.S.-South Korean talks on a Free Trade Agreement concluded this past weekend. The Assistant U.S. Trade Representative involved in those talks, Wendy Cutler, says that although the Free Trade talks and getting Korea to reopen to U.S. beef are topics that are being discussed separately; Cutler: "I think that Korea understands that the beef issue needs to be resolved if this FTA is going to happen. I don't want to speak for Korea but we have made it clear to Korea that its current position with respect to suspending out shipments after box by box shipments looking for bone fragments is not a commercially viable solution to this issue. So I would hope when we get back together with Korea we can find a path forward not only on the boneless issue but that we can also look to how we can achieve a full reopening of the market in the coming months." Cutler adds that work continues to get both nations back to the table to discuss the beef trade issue. Cutler: "We are trying to agree on an agenda for a meeting to take place o the beef issue. I am hopeful that we will be able to work out the agenda very shortly and I am hoping we will have an announcement coming out soon on a meeting on beef." There were some reports out of South Korea this week that talks on beef trade could take place in February. I'm Bob Hoff.