Parties differ somewhat in accusing N. Korea

Lawmakers vote on a resolution condemning North Korea's latest long-range missile test, conducted on Sunday, during a plenary session at the National Assembly, Wednesday. The Assembly adopted the resolution with the support of 243 out of 248 present lawmakers with five abstentions. / Yonhap

By Choi Sung-jin

With parliamentary elections two months away, the ruling and opposition parties went all out during the Lunar New Year holiday to win votes. And North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket on Sunday could not come at a better time for them.

As expected, the conservative ruling Saenuri Party lashed out at the repressive regime in all ways imaginable, calling for the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, the shutting down of the inter-Korean factory park in a North Korean border town and even the nuclear-arming of South Korea.

Unexpected was the harshness of rhetoric from the relatively liberal main opposition party.

"North Korea cannot maintain its system for long by just developing nuclear weapons and firing long-range missiles without taking care of its people's livelihoods," said Kim Jong-in, interim head of the Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) while visiting a frontline combat unit Tuesday. "I am confident the North Korean regime will be annihilated and reunification of the Koreans will come someday."

The expression was so strong that an MPK spokesman had to ask journalists later to replace the word "annihilated" with "destroy itself," pointing out that the former could give the impression the South is about to absorb the North.

On Sunday, Kim also said North Korea will eventually "collapse," however hard it may try to develop atomic weapons, if it fails to make people's lives better, recalling that the Soviet Union collapsed even though it had a vast arsenal of nuclear warheads.

Pundits said the comparatively progressive party's "shift to the right" appears to have been aimed at persuading middle-of-the-road voters that it is never weak in national security issues. "The left-of-center party wants to dispel its soft image on matters related to North Korea, which has often proved vulnerable to the ‘wind from North,'" an analyst said.

Reflecting the dilemma facing the MPK in differentiating itself from the ruling Saenuri on North Korean issues, the spokesman said: "Our party head issued a strong warning against the North but MPK's position seeking peaceful unification remains unchanged."

The difference in the two parties' stances manifested itself in the meeting of the National Assembly's Defense Committee on Sunday, which failed to adopt a resolution after a partisan wrangle.

At stake were two phrases – missile defense and efforts for inter-Korean dialogue. In a draft worked out by the subcommittee heads of the two parties, they decided to call for the government to enhance defense capabilities by, for instance, completing the "Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) system" and resuming "dialogue with North Korea" to prevent any further provocations.

Some ruling party lawmakers, however, demanded the KAMD be replaced with the U.S. missile shield involving the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system while deleting the inter-Korean dialogue part. "Now that Seoul and Washington have already begun to discuss the deployment of THAAD, the Korean missile shield is meaningless," said Rep. Yoo Seung-min, a Saenuri legislator.

Rep. Jin Sung-joon of MPK struck back, saying: "There is no need for Korea to give neighboring countries the impression that Korea is voluntarily becoming a part of the U.S.-led missile defense."

After three hours of debate, lawmakers from both sides began to disappear to head to their respective electorates, and Rep. Chung Doo-un, the committee chairman, declared its adjournment at 7:20 p.m. for failing to have a quorum.

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