By Kim Yon-se
Korea Times Correspondent

TOKYO ― President Lee Myung-bak said he believes that U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls are opposing ratification of the free trade agreement (FTA) with Korea due to the upcoming presidential election.

In a breakfast meeting with reporters here Monday, Lee said he does not think Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are ``really'' opposing the Korea-U.S. FTA.

``Obama and Clinton are opposing the FTA because of the presidential campaign and election,'' he said. ``They will eventually support the FTA after the election in November.''

Noting that the bilateral accord is certainly beneficial to U.S. national interests, Lee said he thinks the FTA will be ratified by the countries' legislators by the end of this year.

Lee also said that Max Baucus, the Democratic head of the Senate Finance Committee, who had threatened to boycott the FTA if Korea refused to fully opens the beef market to the U.S., will become a strong supporter as Seoul has accepted the beef sector demand.

While the public criticism on the government's beef market concessions is growing, the President did not comment on countermeasures against possible risks of mad cow disease from allowing imports of beef containing bone irrespective of cattle age.

He just said ``Koreans will not be supplied U.S. beef by compulsion. If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it.''

Lee said, ``High-quality beef with low prices will be served to ordinary citizens.'' Without mentioning risks, he continued to emphasize the low prices of U.S. beef.

It seems that the U.S. is grateful to the Korean government for having eased quarantine rules, he said. ``I think our agriculture minister acted well in generating agreements (in the recent beef negotiations).''

Lee reiterated that the market opening is totally irrelevant to his drive to have the legislative bodies of both countries ratify the FTA.

Opposition lawmakers, civic groups and farmers are denouncing Lee, saying the President yielded public health and livestock quarantine sovereignty to the U.S. in his summit with George W. Bush.

In addition, Lee said South Korea is reluctant to accept the U.S. request to dispatch troops to Afghanistan and join the Proliferation Security Initiative and Theater Missile Defense.

Instead, Lee said, Bush's decision to scrap a plan to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Korea by an additional 3,500 to 25,000 this year was one of the most important accomplishments from the Camp David summit Saturday.

He said the 3,500 troops, originally scheduled to leave Korea this year, represent the core power of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) as they are mostly U.S. airmen involved with Apache helicopters and other strategic weapons.

``President Bush and I talked to each other like old friends. Thanks to the amicable atmosphere, he told me that he wouldn't raise thorny issues,'' Lee said.

kys@koreatimes.co.kr