Park Geun-hye Makes Official Apology

GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye on Monday said, “We committed a grave blunder during the passage of a bill,” regarding the settlement of the special bill endorsing the project which would relocate key government institutions to the central region, and officially apologized, saying, “We didn’t build enough consensus, collect diverse opinions, or review the validity of the plan enough in areas of critical concern to the entire nation.”

Park stated the above during an introductory speech at a general meeting of GNP lawmakers and added, “The president also has to reflect upon his presidential campaign pledge to move the capital by political expediency, but the Grand National Party also should reflect upon the passage of the bill without undergoing enough review, and the fault lies with the then-majority party, the GNP.”

She then said, “The president had promised to put the issue to a national referendum for collecting opinions, but didn’t keep his word,” and added, “We can make countless apologies, but it still remains how to take the responsibility in dealing with that matter, so the GNP should discuss carefully the issue for the people to accept the GNP’s decision as proper.”

However, the GNP didn’t decide the party’s concrete response to the disputes over the relocation of the new administrative capital during the general meeting, and decided to hold another general meeting on Wednesday to discuss this issue again.

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com