World Jul. 02, 2008 - 06:27AM JST ( 7 )

WASHINGTON —

U.S. President George W Bush will go to South Korea Aug 5 and 6 before heading to Beijing for the Olympics, the White House said Tuesday, without saying if the U.S. leader would attend the Aug 8 opening ceremony.

Bush will meet with South Korea’s President Lee Myung-Bak at the Group of Eight summit in Japan next week, said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s director of Asian Affairs.

“The meeting with President Lee will be an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the visit that President Bush will make to South Korea, which is now scheduled for Aug 5 and 6, that is, just prior to the president going to Beijing for the Olympics,” he said.

Bush is meeting with Lee on July 9 and separately on the same day with President Hu Jintao of China, on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Toyako in northern Japan, Wilder said.

The comments left open whether Bush will attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics, a question which the White House has not yet answered.

Asked about the matter following Wilder’s comment, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe reiterated that Bush’s plans have not yet been announced.

Asked if there could be another stop on Bush’s agenda between South Korea and China, Johndroe did not rule it out.

Other world leaders have threatened to boycott the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony following a Chinese crackdown in Tibet in March that sparked international outrage.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on Monday said that his attendance at the opening ceremony would depend on progress in talks between China and envoys of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.

Sarkozy said he would announce next week whether he would attend the opening ceremony in the Chinese capital.

In South Korea, meanwhile, weeks of street protests against U.S. beef imports looked set to spread to industry, after South Korea’s militant union grouping on Tuesday called for mass work stoppages.

Seoul’s decision in April to resume the imports, which were halted in 2003 after a U.S. mad cow case, has sparked weeks of mass demonstrations, originally over health concerns.

Seoul went back to Washington to negotiate extra health safeguards and last week gave the imports the go-ahead. But the protests have continued, and some have turned violent.

Opponents claim the imports carry the risk of the human form of mad cow disease, despite US and South Korean government assurances the meat is safe.