By Lee Tae-hoon
Legislators of both the ruling and opposition parties Friday expressed their strong disappointment with the government’s handling of inter-Korean dialogue during the National Assembly’s interpellation session on foreign, unification and security policies.
Rep. Gu Sang-chan of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) urged the Lee Myung-bak administration to reshuffle top foreign and security officials for their failure to make progress on inter-Korean relations.
“They have left our government in disgrace in front of the international community following North Korea’s disclosure that they offered envelopes filled with cash and begged for a summit,” he said. “Korea’s pride has fallen into a bottomless pit.”
On Wednesday, North Korea alleged that South Korean negotiators pleaded for arranging a series of inter-Korean summit talks and tried to bribe North Korean counterparts during their clandestine meeting in Beijing on May 9.
Rep. Shin Hak-yong of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Won Sei-hoon and presidential chief of staff Yim Tae-hee should step down for the alleged amateurish negotiations with Pyongyang.
“Negotiations between the two Koreas collapsed, resulting in international humiliation and aggravating inter-Korean relations,” he said. “The unification minister, NIS chief and the presidential chief of staff should resign over their involvement in the secret talks.”
Pyongyang claimed that President Lee’s top security advisor Kim Tae-hyo, unification ministry policy chief Kim Chun-sik and NIS official Hong Chang-hwa met North Korean officials in Beijing.
The communist regime contended that the Seoul negotiators demanded a half-baked public apology that looks like an apology in the eyes of South Koreans, but not in the eyes of North Koreans over the North’s two deadly attacks on the South last year.
Rep. Chung Mi-kyung of the GNP and Rep. Song Min-soon of the DP contended that the incumbent administration has displayed double standards and inconsistency in its North Korean policy.
They argued that the government’s North Korean policy has proven to be self-contradictory.
Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik acknowledged that the two sides held secret contacts, but stressed that South Korean officials did not cross the line.
“If they hurt national prestige by offering cash envelopes or begged for a concession, they should take responsibility,” he said. “But what the North claimed is not true.”
Pyongyang argued that it turned down the alleged proposal because of Seoul’s “lies” about the summit offer and its repeated demand for an apology for the North’s torpedoing of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March last year and an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea later in November.
The communist North maintains that it had nothing to do with the sinking of the Cheonan and that the shelling of Yeonpyeong was part of its response to South Korea-U.S. military drills.
Earlier in the day, Rep. Kim Jin-pyo, floor leader of the DP, urged the government to drop its hard-line policy toward the North and seek unconditional dialogue with the communist nation in a parliamentary speech.
"The DP supports all forms of dialogues, including summits, if they are aimed at improving inter-Korean relations and carried out in a dignified way,” he said.
"If the government truly wants dialogue with the North, it should first discard the hard-line policy toward the North and begin unconditional dialogue to provide humanitarian assistance, including rice, and improve inter-Korean relations.”