GNP Leader Park Blocks Abolition of National Security Law

Main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Chairwoman Park Geun-hye is scheduled to hold a news conference today at GNP headquarters, located Yeomchang-dong, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, where she will reveal the party’s position on the recent row over the fate of the National Security Law.

“With the nation’s unrest growing further, the party decided to hold a news conference in which GNP leader Park will express the party’s position on President Roh Moo-hyun’s recent approval of the abolition of the National Security Law,” GNP spokesman Yim Tae-hee said yesterday at a committee briefing.

Park is known to reiterate the party’s original position of “not abolishing the law, but revising the irrational clause,” and to declare an all-out war against the ruling party at the news conference.

Some sources said that, at the committee meeting, senior GNP lawmakers, including Rhee Gyu-taek and Kim Young-sun, strongly recommended Park to play a spearhead role and reveal the GNP’s position to anxious people in order to dampen the ruling Uri Party’s growing uproar for the law’s abolition.

The opposition GNP has decided to seek an urgent question-and-answer session on pending issues at a National Assembly’s plenary session, which is slated to start September 10. In addition, the GNP will host an open debate on whether to abolish or to maintain the National Security Law and launch a full slate of advertisements to inform that it is not just out to abolish the National Security Law to the people.

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com