[Editorial] President`s Situation Recognition and Summit

In general, there is no reason to oppose to the summit between President Kim Tae-Jung and Lee Hui-Chang (president of Grand National Party(GNP)), which was proposed by President Kim in the celebration speech during the Liberation day ceremony yesterday.

Now our society is overwhelmed by confrontations and discords ever. Ruling and Opposition parties should find the right way to play each role even by holding a summit between two presidents.

As a matter of fact, we are in an extremely chaotic situation in that everything, including ideology and local sentiments, are confronted. On August 2, 32 people from social senior members and citizen groups issued a worried statement about the social chaos, partly coming from the press business tax evasion investigation. In addition, the other day, 115 seniors from various areas made a statement to encourage the solution of the difficult situation. However, there was almost nothing in President Kim`s celebration speech that would try to incorporate the voices. Rather, it appears to have disregarded them.

President Kim has not indicated in his speech what he had thought of the current crisis and how he should solve it. Considering that some critiques, which point out the lack of Party-Government renovation plans, even from the Millennium Democratic Party, the situation recognition of President Kim must be alienated from what it is.

If his views never change, we are doubtful what productive solutions may come out from the summit. For example, President Kim said, ``Let us at least begin with the issues of economy and nation.`` to the GNP. However, in response to this proposal, GNP criticized him, saying that President Kim just showed his complacency of the current situation without laying out any plans to overcome the national crisis and opinion divisions in the celebration speech.

If a summit will replicate the old failure, in which two presidents just raised their voices without reaching any sort of agreement on January 4, it would be better to cancel the meeting.

At that time, both men`s faces were only blushed. That was because they had totally different views about the cause and solutions of the issues. Since the ruling and opposition parties are still confrontational with each other, a summit at this point may aggravate the relationship and disappoint people further. In the past, there were many cases that even the summit agreements were not respected.

More than anything else, unless President Kim situation changes, any agreement that may come from the summit can exacerbate the mistrust in the politics from people. Prior to the summit, a new recognition is required with a will to solve the serious and fundamental problems of our society.