The trade ministry has decided to resubmit a ratification motion for the South Korea-European Union (EU) free trade agreement to the parliament after correcting additional translation errors found in the Korean language version of the pact, a chief lawmaker said Tuesday.
"The government has recently informed the parliament that it has found multiple errors in the process of screening the translation of the text," Rep. Nam Kyung-pil of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), who chairs a parliamentary committee in charge of deliberating the deal, told Yonhap News Agency by phone.
"The government is set to submit again a revised version of the ratification motion after it passes the Cabinet meeting on April 5," said the chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, trade and unification.
The National Assembly will accept if the government requests for the withdrawal of the previous submission of the bill, he added.
Seoul first submitted the trade pact to the Assembly last October, but retracted the bill and resubmitted a revised version to the parliament early this month to correct minor translation errors.
But that was not the end of the controversy over the deal's translation.
Last week, an association of liberal lawyers, named "Lawyers for Democratic Society," found 160 differences between the English- and Korean-language versions of the deal and informed the foreign ministry of them.
The government's planned resubmission is expected to cause a delay in the ratification process.
Seoul is pushing the country's parliament to quickly ratify the deal that was signed late last year as the country and the EU have agreed to enact their trade pact at the beginning of July. The European Parliament ratified it last month.
South Korea's rival political parties are nearing a consensus to approve the free trade pact with the EU during next month's extra legislative session set to open Friday.
Opposition lawmakers have called for a thorough probe into translation errors and omissions in the text of the deal.