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South Korea, U.S. to discuss beefSEOUL (AP)--South Korea and the U.S. will hold talks in early January on a dispute over South Korea's decision to reject American beef shipments that it said contained banned bone fragments, South Korean officials said Jan. 3. The talks scheduled for Jan. 8 and 9 in Seoul come weeks after South Korea rejected all three recent shipments of American beef because of bone fragments that South Korea fears could potentially harbor bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The two sides will "hold technical consultations" over the quarantine issue of American beef, said a South Korean Agriculture and Forestry Ministry official, asking not to be named as he was not authorized to speak to media. Adding to the woes of the U.S. cattle industry, South Korean officials said they discovered unacceptable levels of the dioxin in the third American beef shipment. Seoul has asked Washington to explain why the beef contained the toxic chemical, but the U.S. has given no answer yet, according to the ministry. South Korea, formerly the third-largest foreign market for U.S. beef, agreed to resume imports early last year on a limited basis--boneless meat only from cattle younger than 30 months--on the grounds that some material inside bones could be dangerous to consume and that younger animals are safe from BSE . Imports resumed in October last year, but American beef has never reached South Korean consumers because quarantine authorities rejected all shipments for containing the tiny bone fragments. Seoul returned the first two shipments to the U.S. and is preparing to return the third, according to the ministry. Date: 1/8/07
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