The leader of South Korea’s majority Grand National Party (GNP), Ahn Sang Soo again declared the need for the country to pass the North Korean Human Rights Law in a meeting this morning, but reaffirmed the need for both aid monitoring and for North Korea to come forward and take responsibility for its deadly actions.
Ahn, speaking at a meeting in the National Assembly in Seoul, stated, “We must pass the North Korean Human Rights Law as soon as possible,” pointing out that the GNP has a duty to “take North Korean issues such as the right to life and other directly related human rights issues into account and so foster interest in programs to reduce poverty in North Korea.”
There is the need to “extend humanitarian aid for the North Korean people,” Ahn went on. “We must deliver the benefit to the people of North Korea by focusing on supporting those in the vulnerable classes who suffer the most during food shortages; mothers and infants.”
However, he stressed yet again that all such aid programs “must be premised on establishing enhanced transparency and aid monitoring,” and stated, “We should not yield so much as an inch if an honest apology from the North Korean authorities for the Yeonpyeong Island attack and Cheonan sinking does not come first.”
“Provocations that threaten Korean Peninsula peace must not be tolerated under any circumstances,” Ahn said, before adding for those in South Korea who continue to doubt that the North was responsible for past attacks, “In this society there still exist claims that the Cheonan was ‘not North Korea’s doing’. I want to ask what nation’s parties these are; what country’s organizations these are.”
