Assembly to pass extra budget bill

South Korean lawmakers have a lunch meeting with South Korean Ambassador to Japan Nam Gwan-pyo, second from right, in a restaurant in Tokyo, Thursday. The parliamentary delegation went to Japan from Wednesday to Thursday to meet their Japanese counterparts to discuss ways to ease tensions between the two countries The lawmakers couldn't meet with Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), due to his busy schedule. Yonhap

By Park Ji-won

The National Assembly plan to pass a supplementary budget bill and resolutions condemning Japan's trade restriction and Russia and China's violation of South Korean airspace ran into problems Thursday, with the rival parties sparring over several issues.

“If the ruling party and the Ministry of Economy and Finance accept our proposal to cut the size of the issuance of government bonds, we will be able to proceed with the Assembly session,” Rep. Na Kyung-won, floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), told reporters outside the chamber.

Although the parties had agreed to hold the session to pass the bills, various start times ― 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. ― went by and they failed to convene the main session due to differences on the specifics of the extra budget.

The Assembly session was to be the first held since a months-long hiatus since April.

The government's 7 trillion won ($5.9 billion) supplementary budget, which includes funding for industries affected by recent export restrictions imposed by Japan, has been under review at the budget review committee, a necessary procedure to put it to a vote at the session, but the process is being held up as opposition parties oppose details of the budget bill.

The Assembly was also expected to adopt two resolutions ― a call for the withdrawal of Japan's export restrictions targeting Korean companies and the condemnation of an air incursion by a Russian aircraft into South Korean airspace and the entry into the Korean Air Identification Zone by both Russian and Chinese aircraft.

Earlier in the day, the National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee adopted the resolution on the Russian and Chinese warplanes in a bipartisan effort to cope with the current diplomatic difficulties. It had previously adopted the resolution on Japan's trade restrictions.

The moves came in about three months since the government submitted the bill on April 25 amid mounting worries over the escalating tensions between South Korea and Japan over the handling of the South's Supreme Court ruling ordering Japanese firms to compensate South Korean forced labor victims who worked during Japan's colonial rule of Korea.

The floor leaders of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the LKP and the minor opposition Bareunmirae Party (BMP) agreed to open the extraordinary session to vote on the bill last week.

Meanwhile, the LKP submitted a resolution Thursday to the parliament condemning North Korea for test-firing its missiles to develop its military power which is against the U.N. resolutions.