South Korea's top trade negotiator has stressed that negotiations on revising the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement(FTA) did not touch on exchange rates or on additional liberalization of the agriculture market.

Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong on Thursday emphasized that the FTA issue and exchange rates are two separate issues, saying he believes the U.S. mentioned currency rates with Seoul in order to explain that the two sides had reached a satisfactory agreement. 

Kim said the government had already made public that the issue of exchange rates had been discussed between top financial officials of Seoul and Washington, pointing out that Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed the U.S. Treasury's April currency report during a meeting last month.   

The trade minister said if a currency deal had been part of a "package deal," the Finance Ministry would have had to reach an agreement on it along with the FTA and steel tariffs. 

He cited that while the ministry has already settled the issues of steel tariffs and the trade accord, it is still negotiating the currency issue with the U.S. Treasury Department. 

Regarding South Korea's agricultural sector, the trade minister said no agreements had been reached on the matter during the talks on revising the FTA. He stressed that the agricultural sector had been South Korea's non-negotiable "red line."