South Korea and the United States agreed to extend their ministerial beef talks by at
least one more day Thursday morning (Korean time) as they failed to narrow differences over "technical issues" on Seoul's resumption of U.S. beef imports.
South Korea's Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon told reporters that the two sides have agreed on the "principle that the U.S. will ship beef from cattle less than 30 months old," according to Yonhap News.
Emerging from three-and-a-half-hour talks at the U.S. Trade Representative Office in Washington, Kim said, "We will meet again arly tomorrow morning to discuss technical issues."
Earlier in the day, Kim and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab held an informal meeting over lunch. "We just had an informal meeting," Schwab told reporters while entering the USTR building after a two-hour meeting with Trade Minister Kim at an undisclosed place.
The Kim-Schwab meeting, the fourth of its kind since Friday, was delayed at the request of the American side and the reason of the delay was not immediately known.
The April 18 beef import deal sparked massive protests across the nation and prompted President Lee's Cabinet to offer resignations en masse.
Lee's approval ratings plummeted below 20 percent after the beef row erupted. He won the December presidential election by the largest margin ever thanks to his campaign pledges to revive the faltering South Korean economy.