Bipartisan summit set for Monday

Floor leaders of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party and the opposition Grand National Party met Thursday and reached a compromise over three major pending issues, including the MDP's unilateral passage of a National Assembly Law revision through the Steering Committee on Jul. 24.

Accordingly, the long-stalemated Assembly session is expected to be normalized early next week.

Consequently, President Kim Dae-Jung and GNP leader Lee Hoi-Chang will meet at Chong Wa Dae at 11 a. m. Monday and discuss the three pending disputes and other questions, including inter-Korean issues, economic issues and social and other wide- ranging problems of national concern.

The rival parties are scheduled to hold negotiations starting Thursday on the selection of the concrete topics to be raised at the Kim-Lee talks and prior coordination in their positions for the political summit.

However, relations between the ruling MDP and its former coalition partner, the United Liberal Democrats, are feared to be deteriorating, as the ULD raised complaints against the MDP-GNP accords and declared its intent not to cooperate with the ruling party.

In a statement, ULD spokesman Byun Woong-Jun charged Friday that the two-party agreement mocked the people with polemics and was a blatant example of partisan tactics, in breach of political ethics. The ULD will grapple with every issue fairly and squarely, siding with the people, the spokesman asserted.

In the MDP-GNP whips' meeting, the two parties agreed to refer the controversial Assembly revision bill to the Steering Committee for re-deliberation with an aim to pass it through the parliamentary plenary session within the current Assembly session. But they concurred that the two parties should refrain from attempting to forcibly pass the bill or using physical force to block it.

As for the alleged MDP intervention in the probes of the party lawmakers' campaign funding, the two sides agreed to conduct a special parliamentary inspection of the case, equal to the parliamentary investigation, and to summon Rep. Yoon Chul-Sang, the MDP's ex-vice secretary general, for his testimony in connection with the case.

With regard to the Hanvit Bank loan scandal, the two parties reached accords to conduct parliamentary inspection to shed light on the scam, in parallel with the current investigation by the Prosecutor¡¯s Office. But in case that the parties consider that further inquiries are deemed necessary, they will introduce an independent prosecutor to investigate the scandal.