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| South Korean President Park Geun-hye, left, and U.S. President Barack Obama / AP-Yonhap |
South Korea's ruling and opposition parties showed mixed responses Saturday to the outcome of the summit between President Park Geun-hye and the U.S. President Barack Obama.
At the summit in Washington hours earlier, Park and Obama reaffirmed their willingness to engage North Korea if it moves toward denuclearization.
The ruling Saenuri Party noted it was the first adoption of a joint statement exclusively on North Korea between the leaders of the two nations.
"It is a declaration of urgency to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue and a strong will for South Korea and the U.S. to work together for that," the party's spokesman Kim Young-woo said.
He also pointed out that the joint statement addresses the communist nation's human rights abuses.
But the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) criticized the summit, saying there was no new content or achievements at all.
"There should have been more creative suggestions on ways to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue," said Yoo Eun-hye, the party's spokeswoman.
She stressed that Park failed to persuade U.S. officials to overturn their refusal to transfer some key technologies needed for South Korea's own fighter jet project known as KF-X.
Experts, on the other hand, anticipate a strong backlash from North Korea. They said the North is "likely to react sensitively to the nuclear issue" and will likely continue making verbal threats.
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