S Korea to miss self-imposed deadline on US trade pact

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SEOUL, Oct 28 (Reuters): South Korea's ruling party Friday rejected opposition demands for changes to a free trade deal with the United States but said it would not use its parliamentary majority to push through the pact before the self-imposed deadline of end-October. The conservative Grand National Party had said it would try to pass the trade bill this week, adding pressure on the main opposition Democratic Party to accept what had been its initiative, negotiated and signed when it was in power in 2007. "We have done all we conscientiously could to try to listen to the Democratic Party's demands," GNP chairman of the parliamentary trade committee, Nam Kyung-pil said. "But a renegotiation is just not possible." The Democratic Party has demanded a renegotiation with the United States to fix what it said was an imbalance in national interests. The two sides reworked the deal last year to address US automakers' concerns that the original pact would not help open the South Korean market quickly enough. The ruling GNP has a comfortable parliamentary majority to pass bills but has been unwilling to risk political damage by pushing the trade bill through ahead of a general parliamentary and presidential elections next year. Pressure has been on the South Korean government of President Lee Myung-bak to get the pact ratified by parliament after the US Congress approved it two weeks ago and President Barack Obama signed it with two other US trade deals.