SEOUL, May 14 (Reuters) - South Korea will delay the resumption of U.S. beef imports scheduled for Thursday in the face of mounting public concern of the safety of the product, its farm ministry said on Wednesday.

South Korea, once the third-largest importer of American beef until an outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003, said it was scheduled to start quarantine inspections of U.S. beef from Thursday.

The farm ministry did not give any further details on the delay. (Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

AlertNet news is provided by