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| Ruling Democratic Party of Korea Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil, center, speaks during a meeting of the party's Supreme Council at the National Assembly in Seoul. Yonhap |
Politicians, government bodies express different stances over joint exercises
By Jung Da-min
The government is experiencing an internal divide over the joint summertime military exercises between Seoul and Washington, following a warning from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's powerful sister that they would damage inter-Korean relations.
Opinions are divided even within the ruling party and different government departments, over whether to delay, cancel or scale down the regular exercises or to go ahead with them as originally planned from the middle of the month.
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| Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un / Yonhap |
Her warning came only five days after the two Koreas restored communication hotlines after 13 months of severed relations, raising expectations for an improvement in inter-Korean ties and the recommencement of denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington.
Since the restoration of the hotlines, some high-ranking government officials and members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) have claimed that the South should postpone or cancel the exercises to keep momentum for engagement with the North. But such claims have faced opposition not only from the country's conservative opposition but also among some members of the liberal bloc as well, especially after Kim Yo-jong's statement.
DPK Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil, the head of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, said the summertime drills were not hostile military actions but rather defensive ones to keep the peace on the Korean Peninsula, adding holding them was necessary for the South Korean military's plan to acquire wartime operational control of its armed forces from the U.S.
"We are not conducting large-scale exercises with the mobilization of troops, and we are preparing the exercises in accordance with the COVID-19 pandemic situation and the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. It is joint command post training without any actual mobilization of troops and is conducted through computer simulations," Song said during a meeting of the DPK's Supreme Council, Monday.
But five-term DPK lawmaker Sul Hoon, a member of the Assembly National Defense Committee, said it was time for a "flexible" response to fully restore dialogue momentum between the Koreas, proposing the postponement of the drills.
"In order to create a new inflection point in inter-Korean relations and to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it is desirable to postpone the exercises. There is no need to forcefully conduct the joint drills when the pandemic situation is worsening," Sul said in his Facebook the same day.
Government bodies have shown different positions as well. Unification ministry officials are advocating a delay saying the exercises should not raise military tensions on the peninsula. But the defense ministry maintains that the governments of the South and the U.S. will decide on the drills.
The opposition criticized Kim Yo-jong's statement and the Moon government's stance, saying it has been submissive to Pyongyang.
"The Moon administration keeps silent again to Kim Yo-jong's demand to cancel the South Korea-U.S. joint military drills. Since when did Kim Yo-jong become South Korea's commander-in-chief?" main opposition People Power Party (PPP) member Yoo Seong-min wrote on Facebook.
The PPP has criticized the government for doing everything that Kim Yo-jong has demanded, including establishing a law to ban anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns late last year after she slammed the campaigns and the North blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in Gaeseong in protest.
North Korea watchers said the sister of the North Korean leader has achieved what she intended with her latest statement ― causing internal conflict not just between South Korea and the U.S. but among South Korean politicians.
"Kim Yo-jong knows that the militaries of South Korea and the U.S. will carry out the joint exercises as planned starting mid-August. But what she intended through her statement was to bring about internal conflict among South Korean politicians," said Moon Sung-mook, a senior researcher at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
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