South Koreans refusing to re-open FTA negotiations

Not more than a few weeks after the Peruvian government said it would not be re-opening FTA negotiations, the South Korean government is doing the same.

According to this AP story, beside the concerns of Koreans about the harmful agricultural and public health provisions of the FTA - not to mention the concerns of key members of Congress on labor rights, market access and more - a Korean government official told reporters that neither the Korean or Bush administration has made any real moves to renegotiate:

"Once a deal is done ... it's done. So, we repeatedly expressed our strong view to our counterparts that once a deal is done, then we cannot reopen it again," he told foreign reporters in Seoul. "We didn't receive anything formally or officially from the U.S. side yet."