Rival parties clash over GNP lawmaker`s provocative remarks

The National Assembly held a plenary session on Tuesday and conducted an interpellation of unification, diplomatic and security affairs, but the session was disrupted as lawmakers of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) responded harshly to provocative remarks made by Rep. Kim Yong-Kap of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), who labeled the MDP the "second column" of North Korea's ruling Workers¡¯Party.

Due to the bipartisan standoff over Kim's controversial statement, the Assembly failed to hold a two-way policy consultative conference between the ruling and the opposition parties, which was to deal with the formation of a special parliamentary investigation panel on the Hanvit loan scandal and the injection of public funds into ailing enterprises.

GNP lawmaker Kim, taking the rostrum as a questioner, contended that the ruling party of this country is going all out to amend the National Security Law even by revising its party platform and because of this, some quarters in society are accusing the MDP of being the second column of the North Korean ruling party.

Rep. Kim went as far as to claim that the attempts to revise the National Security Law would result in the eventual realization of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's common-front unification strategy.

Following the stall of the Assembly session due to Kim's remarks, the MDP held an emergency meeting of party lawmakers and a meeting of the floor measures committee in succession and denounced his statement as anti-democratic, and anti-unification. The MDP further demanded that the GNP expel him from the party, deprive him of Assembly membership or force him to resign.

MDP spokesman Park Byeong-Seug claimed that Kim's remarks were anti-democratic, anti-unification and aimed at making the people an enemy and alienating the government from the people. He called for the opposition party to force him to retract his statement and apologize, strike his statement from the parliamentary minutes, offer a party-level apology, expel him from the GNP and force him to resign from the Assembly or give up his parliamentary membership.

Meanwhile, the GNP, with party president Lee Hoi-Chang chairing, convened a meeting of the party leadership and shared the view that Kim's remarks were inappropriate. In this regard, the participants reached a consensus that the GNP would positively consider a party apology for Kim's statement and the deletion of his remarks from the parliamentary minutes.

Consequently, MDP floor leader Chung Kyun-Hwan and his GNP counterpart, Chung Chang-Hwa, held talks at the Assembly on ways to address Kim¡¯s remarks, but the two failed to narrow the differences in their positions as the MDP whip in particular maintained a hard-line stance.