ULD Abruptly Participates in Unification, FA, Trade Committee

With ten Millennium Democratic Party lawmakers (MDP) and Chung Mong-Jun, an independent lawmaker, unattended, eleven Grand National Party (GNP) lawmakers who belong to the National Assembly`s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee (UFATC), and United Liberal Democrats (ULD) lawmaker Kim Jong-Ho held yesterday a full-body meeting of the UFATC and passed a calling proposal for unification minister Lim Dong-Won. The UFATC was barely able to constitute a quorum for the decision making.

Lawmaker Kim said, ``It is right to convene a National Assembly plenary meeting since all people in the country are curious about the incident by the delegates to North Korea for the 8.15 Pyongyang Festival. And the ULD has a firm inside standpoint for replacement of minister Lim.``

However, minister Lim did not attend the meeting saying, he needed more time for a `working-level preparation`, and secretaries of the ruling and opposition parties decided to call minister Lim tomorrow for a report on pending matters.

Lawmaker Jo Woong-Gyu, the secretary of the GNP, said, ``The absence of minister Lim is a behavior that ignores the National Assembly laws. We have decided to review a plan to impeach him as a separate issue in addition to the replacement proposal.``

After accepting lawmaker Park Kwan-Yong`s proposal, the UFATC passed a case that asks the Ministry of Unification (MU) to submit an identification screening result related to the approval process of the 8.15 delegates` visit to North Korea.

Meanwhile, lawmaker Kim Won-Woong of the GNP voiced a different tone against the party`s leader group by saying, ``Although we should humbly accept the people`s criticism on the incident made by the delegates to North Korea, the proposal to replace minister Lim has to be dealt prudently considering the future relationship between South and North.``

Lawmaker Kim added, ``If minister Lim is abruptly replaced, it will be unavoidable to experience a setback on the South-North relationship achieved over a long period. We have to be cautious against an extreme demolition doctrine, and a nationalistic goal is not supposed to be a sacrificial target for the political competition structure.``

After saying that he also agreed with Seo Sang-Seob and An Young-Kun, both lawmakers, on his idea of being circumspective to the replacement proposal, the lawmaker said that he will contact the party`s reformers including vice-chairman Lee Boo-Young to gather more supporters on his such idea.

Moon Chul fullmoon@donga.com