MDP Chair Proposes Trilateral Summit

Hahn Hwa-gap, chairman of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) proposed yesterday that South and North Korea and the US hold trilateral summit talk in Jeju Island in order to produce a peace declaration on the Korean Peninsula.

He said in his speech at the National Assembly, "One of the most urgent issues is to pull together our wisdom to address major matters of concern in the relations between North Korea and the US."

Pointing an accusing finger at Lee Hoi-chang, standard bearer of the Grand National Party (GNP), Hahn said, "Lee would know better than anybody else about why the parliamenatary investigation into public fund ended up without conclusion. Almost all people know how much money has been injected to which corporation, to which party did the money go and in whose hands the money did fall."

He emphasized that a number of suspicions involving Lee should be brought to light, saying that the suspicions are based on the truth. Among them is the draft-dodging scandal involving Lee`s two sons.

He promised to refrain from mobilizing a huge number of canvassers in campaign venues and focus more on election campaign via the Internet in a bid to make the upcoming presidential election a transparent election with less election fund. He also proposed to facilitate the TV debate among presidential candidates, to institutionalize the revised version of the election law recommended by the National Election Committee (NEC) and to encourage presidential candidates to eradicate regionalism.

He said, "The upcoming presidential election is the confrontation between the past and the future. The election will determine whether to settle peace on the Korean peninsula, whether to go back to the confrontational era in the past, whether to create a government that serves the middle class and the general public or serves a handful of the privileged, and whether to continue the reform to achieve the economic prosperity."

He told reporters after delivering his speech, "I was briefed that the GNP evaded the point while investigating the usage of the public fund injected to a construction company. I will take issue with it at the parliamentary interpellation session."

Young-Chan Yoon yyc11@donga.com