By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter


U.S. Senator Joseph Biden urged the George W. Bush administration on Monday to include South Korea in the U.S. visa waiver program and reopen a consulate in the Asian nation’s second largest city of Pusan.

Biden (Democrat-Delaware), a ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, issued a press release welcoming Bush’s announcement in South Korea last week in which he proposed that the ally be brought onto the list of the visa waiver program.

``South Korea is a strong ally, and we should ensure that South Korean visitors in our country enjoy the same privileges shared by the citizens of 27 other responsible nations, including Japan,’’ he said in the release.

He also called on the Bush administration to reopen the consulate in Pusan which was closed in 1996, noting that China, which already operates a consulate in the largest port city of South Korea, plans to open another consulate in South Korea.

The visa problem has been one of the major issues between Seoul and Washington in the past several years as South Korea saw an increasing number of people traveling to the U.S. for various purposes such as business and education.

The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has made constant efforts to guide and educate U.S.-bound travelers to bring the visa refusal rate below 3 percent, a threshold needed before entry into the U.S. visa waiver program.

In last week’s summit in Kyongju ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Pusan, President Roh Moo-hyun made a special request to Bush and the U.S. president instructed his aides to consider the visa exemption for South Koreans.

``This is an incredibly valuable relationship, but there is room to strengthen it,’’ said the senator, who is one of the viable presidential candidates from the Democratic Party. He sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last Thursday with the same recommendations.

``Despite improvements in train and air links between Pusan and Seoul, South Korea remains a nation marked by strong regionalism,’’ Biden wrote in the letter. ``It is important for the United States to sustain more than just a `virtual’ electronic presence in South Korea’s second largest city.’’

He expected the visa waiver program could revitalize the alliance between South Korea and the U.S., which has drifted apart in the past several years.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr