Floor leader of the Democratic Party Lee Kang Rae has expressed his unqualified approval at President Lee Myung Bak’s willingness to attend an inter-Korean summit within the year.
Speaking to the National Assembly on Wednesday, Lee said, ”I welcome President Lee Myung Bak’s taking a positive stance towards inter-Korean summit talks. President Lee’s stance on the summit is appropriate,” and asserted, “We need a new breakthrough to solve the North Korean nuclear issue and to build a peace treaty system.”
However, he maintained, “An indication of South Korea’s stance is not enough. To show sincerity, the government should clearly address how it plans to deal with its policy towards North Korea under the premises of ‘Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness.’”
“Taking a positive stance on the June 15 Inter-Korean Joint declaration and October 4 Inter-Korean Summit Agreement could eliminate distrust between the two Koreas and lead to a new breakthrough.”
He also added, “President Lee should amend South Korea’s hostile policy towards North Korea as a whole, and establish a basis of peace and co-existence so as to promote an Inter-Korean summit.”
Related to humanitarian rice deliveries to North Korea, Lee was enthusiastic, stressing, “These are stepping stones towards inter-Korean peace, and will have a double effect by reducing the difficulties of our agricultural community. Thus South Korea should resume rice aid as soon as possible.”
In response, a spokesperson for the Grand National Party, Cho Hae Jin commented, “The Democratic Party’s calling the government’s policy towards North Korea an unrealistic hostile policy and maintaining that the party will support the government only if it amends its’ policy as a whole is a consequence of the fact that the Democratic Party has yet to fall out of the past government’s Sunshine Policy that led to North Korea’s nuclear development.”
Spokesperson Park Sun Young of the Liberty Forward Party also criticized Lee heavily, saying, “If they had a little bit of conscience, as the party with the same roots as the policy of the last ten years, they would apologize for this fact contained in a U.S congressional report; that those economic co-operation funds which were paid to North Korea for the inter-Korean summits became the seed money for investments in North Korean nuclear technological development.”
