By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

Talks on U.S. beef imports to South Korea were still stalemated Wednesday as the two countries have yet to iron out differences on sanitation standards.

``So far there has been no progress and there are no signs of improvement in the near future,'' Kim Hyeon-soo, spokesman of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said.

The negotiation resumed Friday after the first round of talks bore no fruit in October last year.

On Monday, South Korean Assistant Agriculture Minister Min Dong-seok indicated beef containing bones from 30-month-old or younger cattle could be imported, but Washington urged South Korea to lift all restrictions on both age and bone parts.

Representatives led by Ellen Terpstra, chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and deputy undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, said American beef has been certified safe from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as mad cow disease, by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

The organization classified the country as a risk-controlled one, which technically permits it to export beef with virtually no restrictions.

They also asked South Korea to change its current quarantine regulations and processes, while South Korea is insisting on no changes to prevent the possibility of mad-cow disease.

South Korean negotiators also said the country can't accept OIE guidelines on specified risk materials (SRMs). The guidelines do not require the U.S. to remove of cattle butchered before 30 months of age.

SRMs, which include backbones, skulls, brains, spinal cords and other internal organs, are blacklisted as having a higher likelihood of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

South Korea was the third-largest market for U.S. beef exports before it banned them in December 2003 after the fatal brain-wasting disease was found there.

Seoul partly allowed market access in 2006 to American beef that was from cattle slaughtered before reaching 30 months of age, lifting its almost three-year ban. Young cattle are believed to be at least risk. All imports, however, were again suspended in September after some bone fragments were discovered in a shipment.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr