Japan says US beef sanction proposal "nonsense"

TOKYO, June 23 (Reuters) Japan's agriculture minister today said it was meaningless for US lawmakers to file a bill seeking sanctions against Japan over a ban on US beef after the two governments had already agreed to resolve the issue.

Half a dozen US senators from farm and ranch states filed a bill on Wednesday asking for sanctions of 3 billion dollar a year if Japan did not end its ban.

Their action came after officials from the two governments agreed earlier that day that US beef shipments to Japan would resume after Japanese inspection of US beef processing plants.

''It is nonsense for US senators to file at this moment a bill threatening sanctions with a deadline,'' Shoichi Nakagawa said at a news conference, adding that the two governments had done substantial work towards a resumption of beef trade.

However, he did not say when imports would actually restart.

''Japan will conduct its own check-up, but I don't know what will happen after that and what we will do...and when,'' he said.

Japanese officials have said inspection of US beef plants, due to start later in June, will take about a month. Beef shipments will only be allowed into Japan from US plants that Japanese inspectors confirm as meeting safety requirements.

US lawmakers, frustrated with a protracted Japanese ban on US beef, said Wednesday's US-Japan agreement was just another stalling tactic to stretch out the ban.

Yesterday, the US Senate Appropriations Committee voted that the United States should impose economic sanctions on Japan if it fails to put aside its fears of mad cow disease and open its borders to US beef by the end of the summer.

Last December Japan lifted a two-year-old ban on US beef and beef offal, imposed due to concerns about mad cow disease, on condition that the meat was only from animals aged up to 20 months and that risk materials such as spinal cords that can spread mad cow disease were removed before shipment.

But a month later it suspended imports because Japanese inspectors found some of the banned materials in a veal shipment from a New York company.

Beef has been a thorny issue in relations between Japan and its closest ally. Before the ban, Japan was the top importer of US beef, buying 240,000 tonnes valued at 1.4 billion dollar in 2003.

In Japan, opposition political parties and consumer groups also condemned Wednesday's beef accord, saying the government had yielded to US pressure to resolve the issue before the heads of the two governments meet in Washington on June 29.

They have urged the government to keep a ban on US beef until Washington tightens safety measures against mad cow disease to the level of Japan.

REUTERS SY PM1302