Roh Suggests Meeting with Opposition

President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday proposed to the Uri Party and Grand National Party (GNP) that they hold a political consultative conference attended by representatives of ruling and opposition parties in order to resolve issues of contention.

The GNP didn’t release an official announcement and decided to make a final decision at a supreme council meeting on November 27. However, it is unclear whether the meeting will be held as scheduled because of a strong negative sentiment within the party.

Presidential secretary Lee Byung-wan noted, “President Roh said that through the political consultative meeting, he wants to break the standoff over major legislation relating to public welfare, and legislation of national reform bills that got stuck in the National Assembly for more than a year, and prepare alternative measures by collecting opinions from ruling and opposition party negotiation bodies to determine the future direction of administering state affairs, as well as handling budget issues for next year.”

Regarding the meeting agenda, Lee said that the meeting will deal with all the issues. However, it is expected that the ruling and opposition parties will find it hard to straighten matters out as the GNP will allegedly dismiss the proposal of a political consultative meeting or cite the withdrawals of the appointment of candidate Jeon Hyo-suk for chief justice and Jeong Yeon-ju for KBS president as a precondition for holding the meeting.

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