President Roh Decides Not to Veto

President Roh Moo-hyun announced yesterday that he would not veto the Independent Counsel Bill. He urged, however, that lawmakers from both parties resume dialog and seek modifications.

"I respect the decision of the National Assembly. That is why I decided not to veto the bill," President Roh said, upon signing the bill into law at a cabinet meeting held at 5 p.m. Thursday.

President Roh stated in a televised speech, "The current bill may sour the North-South relationship. Under the Act, the independent counsel is required to reveal the secret deal with Pyongyang." Then, he asked the National Assembly to "come up with safety measures against possible damage to national interest through dialog."

Accepting President Roh`s request, the Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party had an unofficial meeting Thursday to discuss what amendments should be made to the Act, prior to the independent counsel`s probe into Kim Dae Jung`s ‘secret checkbook diplomacy.’

Before the President made the decision, the two parties` members sat together to amend the bill, but failed to come up with any results. Millennium Democrats including its leader Chung Dae-chul then visited the Blue House and requested that the President should exercise his veto right.

In a telephone conversation with Grand National Party`s acting leader Park Hee-tae, Millennium Democrat leader Chung demanded that the bill be modified so that the term of the counsel be shortened, the counsel should not disclose the investigation results, and the counsel is not allowed to investigate how the money was wired and how the representatives of the two Koreas met. Park, however, denied the request and said, "This bill is conceived to find out how and why the money was sent to North Korea only."

In the meanwhile, secretary generals of both parties had a separate meeting and narrowed their differences on some points, but failed to produce any results due to the GNP’s insistence on the President`s signing the bill first.

Thus, each party held a meeting with its members and discussed follow-up options. Neither, however, came up with any good ideas due to the extremely opposite positions taken by both parties.

Grand National Party spokesperson Park Chong-hee explained, "It is impossible to introduce a modified bill just one day prior to the deadline. Millennium Democrats demanded this and that. But, their demands, in a nutshell, seemed as though they were arguing that we didn’t need the bill at all."

Upon the demand from Millennium Democrats, the Blue House put off the cabinet meeting, which was originally scheduled for 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.