Timing of Ratification of U.S. FTA is Unclear: Official

It is still unclear whether a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States will be ratified this month by South Korea's parliament given the political situation here, a trade official said Wednesday.

``The parliamentary ratification of the South Korea-U.S free trade agreement this month is still murky,'' Lee Hye-min, director general for the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement at the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, said during an interview on a local radio program.

The official said this month's parliamentary session ends on Feb. 26, a day after President-elect Lee Myung-bak's inauguration, and the progressive Democratic Labor Party is strongly opposing the trade deal.

``If the deal is approved first by our National Assembly, it could serve as leverage in pressing the U.S. Congress to follow suit,'' said Lee.

``Last week, South Korea took its first step toward parliamentary ratification, submitting the trade bill to a parliamentary committee for a review. But the chances of ratifying the agreement at this month's parliamentary session remain slim given the current political situation.

President-elect Lee's Grand National Party has been seeking to ratify the bill before his Feb. 25 inauguration, while the pro-government United New Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party _ together holding a majority in the 299-member legislature_ want to vote on the bill after the April 9 general election.

The free trade pact, signed in June last year, has been billed as the most significant event in South Korean-U.S. relations since the two nations signed their military accord in 1953. Economically, it would boost two-way trade _already worth US$79 billion a year_ by as much as $20 billion in coming years.

On the U.S. side, the Democratic-led Congress has been stressing that the full reopening of Korea's market to U.S. beef imports is the key to gaining its support for the accord. (Yonhap)