040413 Japan Says Ball In U.S. Court On Beef Trade Issue

Tokyo - Japan is waiting for the United States to make the next move to resume talks on normalising beef trade, deadlocked on Tokyo's demand that all cattle be tested for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Japan stopped importing U.S. beef in late December after the United States reported its first case of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

It has since stood firm in demanding that the United States test all its cattle for the brain-wasting disease -- as Japan does -- or implement an equivalent measure.

"We are asking the (United States) to provide us with a proposal to resolve the issue... we would like to see this proposal as soon as possible," an official at the ministry said.

"We are ready to discuss the issue as soon as we receive a proposal."

He said U.S. measures announced so far were geared towards checking whether the disease had taken hold among U.S. cattle, rather than addressing the needs of the importing country.

U.S. officials are expected to respond this week to Japanese questions, including providing details on procedures to ensure that "specified risk materials" are kept out of the food chain.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to arrive in Japan over the weekend for talks focused on foreign policy issues, but the visit could also present an opportunity for high-level talks on beef trade.

He is due to meet Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, but Japanese officials said they had no information on whether Cheney would be holding discussions with farm minister Yoshiyuki Kamei.

Contact between Tokyo and Washington has largely been limited to an exchange of letters after the last face-to-face talks ended without progress in late January.

LETTER TO VENEMAN

The Agriculture Ministry official said there had been no official response from Washington to a letter Kamei sent to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Friday. In the letter, Kamei said careful discussion was still needed on the U.S. announcement on March 15 that it was boosting its testing for mad cow disease.

"I believe it is impossible to reach a conclusion on this (BSE) issue by the end of April unless (the United States) takes the same measures as our country," the letter said.

Veneman reiterated on Tuesday that Washington would not accept Japan's demand for blanket testing, which it says is scientifically unjustified.

Although no end appears in sight to the row, which has halted more than $1 billion of U.S. beef purchases by Japan, some industry watchers say a partial trade resumption may be possible.

Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef has asked the U.S. Agriculture Department for permission to test all its slaughtered cattle for BSE, so it can resume beef exports to Japan.

It was unclear when the department would rule on the request.

A rare human form of BSE -- variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease -- can result from eating contaminated animal products although there have been no reports of humans catching it in Japan. Three months after the ban on U.S. imports, Australian beef sales have been soaring in Japan. Australian beef exports to Japan in the first three months of 2004 rose 38%, more than expected, Meat & Livestock Australia's chief market analyst Peter Weeks said on Wednesday.

Australia and the United States are traditionally the top two foreign beef suppliers to Japan.

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