Leader of the minority Liberty Forward Party Lee Hoi Chang today dismissed North Korea’s proposal for talks between the legislatures of the two Koreas as “worthless and completely illogical.”
Speaking at a meeting at party HQ today, Lee said that this is because the “Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea and our own National Assembly are not on the same level.”
“The Supreme People’s Assembly is a body born of the ‘Suryeong’ dictatorial system, whereas our National Assembly is an independent administrative and legislative national body encompassing the separation of powers,” Lee said, before asking, “How could you possibly call discussions between two such fundamentally different organizations ‘parliamentary talks’?”
Not only that, he added, “Under our constitution the Assembly has only legislative and administrative authority, not the authority to act on behalf of the government.”
Besides, Lee went on, “In the words of North Korea itself the current tensions between North and South have reached an impasse, but it is one brought about by the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island attacks, which they were responsible for, and our government is now responding to them,” Lee said, stressing, “It would be outside of the Assembly’s jurisdiction to meet with the highest body in North Korea and hold talks about this situation, which is part of our government’s responsibility.”
Moreover, Lee said, “Proposals for North-South talks are part of an age-old peace offensive, nothing more than a typical trick from North Korea aimed at mitigating a situation caused by their own military provocation, and uniting their own front while inciting conflict and unrest within South Korea.”
“We cannot get roped in by this and let the internal conflict intensify,” he concluded. “Whether we recognize these proposals as genuine or not, it would be contrary to the nature and outside the constitutional jurisdiction of the National Assembly to have them, and when you look at the North’s political motivation as well, there’s clearly nothing for us to gain from these talks. The assembled parties should not even consider them if there is neither a clear purpose nor common sense involved.”
