About 4,000 South Korean anti-globalisation activists rallied Tuesday against drawn-out talks on forging a free trade agreement with the United States.
The protesters burned a paper cow covered with a US flag and shouted "Stop FTA negotiations" during a street rally, accusing the government of sacrificing the livelihoods of farmers for a "badly prepared" deal with the United States.
About 2,000 workers, unionists and activists sneaked through a police cordon after the rally to occupy a street near a hotel in eastern Seoul, where US and South Korean trade officials started a five-day meeting on Monday.
Police, armed with a water cannon, barricaded the street with buses and stopped the demonstrators from approaching the heavily guarded hotel venue.
Led by six people beating drums and gongs, protesters staged a noisy one-hour protest, shouting slogans such as "No to FTA!".
The rally was organized by the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-US FTA, a coalition of anti-globalisation groups which has staged a wave of violent protests.
The coalition denounced police for blocking many farmers from leaving their home towns to participate in the march.
About 35,000 riot police have been deployed nationwide, with officers setting up checkpoints leading to highways, bus terminals and railway stations to stop farmers and others from descending on Seoul.
Previous rounds have seen violent protests by farmers and unionists, who fear a deal could cost them their livelihoods by allowing in cheap imports of goods and services.
US assistant trade representative Wendy Cutler had voiced optimism Monday after her first contact with South Korea's chief delegate, Kim Jong-Hoon.
Washington needs an agreement no later than early April if it is to be cleared by the US Congress before US President George W. Bush's powers to fast-track trade deals expire in June.
Kim also called for an early conclusion of the deal, but insisted South Korea would put an emphasis on the deal's contents.
"The deadline carries less weight than the contents of the deal," he told reporters late Monday.
Both sides have left major disagreements -- over US anti-dumping and countervailing rules, and non-tariff barriers in South Korea's auto and drug markets -- off the agenda in an effort to agree on less important issues first.
Those key topics were tackled at informal meetings between Culter and Kim.
With no clear sign of headway in the negotiations, both sides opened a separate channel of high-level dialogue Tuesday to resolve the issue of textile trade.
"We agreed to wrap up talks on textile trade before the deadline," South Korean Deputy Commerce Minister Lee Jae-Hoon said after his first meeting with Scott Quesenberry, the top US textile negotiator.
South Korea has proposed phasing out textile tariffs over five years, while the US insists on 10 years.
South Korean officials said they have ignored a US request that the FTA should cover rice, the Korean staple.
The FTA with South Korea would be the US' biggest deal since the North American NAFTA pact in 1994, marrying two economies whose bilateral trade in 2005 was 72 billion dollars.
The talks have been further clouded by Seoul's banning last year of three US beef shipments due to the presence of small bone fragments in them, after it ended a three-year import ban imposed to guard against mad-cow disease.Agence France Presse
