Alexander Vershbow,
ex-US envoy |
A former top U.S. envoy to South Korea said Friday that Seoul may need to show some flexibility to sit down with Washington for additional negotiations over a pending free trade pact.
Alexander Vershbow, who recently completed his three-year service in Seoul, told a seminar in Washington hosted by the Korea Economic Institute that South Koreans need "to be open-minded by showing flexibility as the United States showed on beef after the candlelight vigil," Yonhap News reported Saturday.
He hoped that the incoming Obama administration will ratify a free trade deal with South Korea early next year if Seoul shows that flexibility.
The two countries signed a free trade agreement in June last year that is still pending in both countries' legislatures.
Both Seoul and Washington are careful to avoid the word “renegotiation,” but “some additional negotiations or complementary understandings about non-tariff barriers may be the only way to get the Korea-U.S. FTA to go through," Vershbow said. "It's realistic to make some kind of fixes we need."
Vershbow feared any failure to do that will result in the "questioning in reliability of partners."
U.S. President-elect Barak Obama has said he would not support the Korea FTA "as it is" and termed it as "badly flawed," saying South Korea exports more than 700,000 automobiles to the U.S. annually while buying about 5,000 U.S vehicles.
|
경찰, 이태원 등 외국인 밀집지역 특별관리
