hankyoreh

In a parliamentary inquiry on diplomacy, unification and security on Friday, members of the Lee administration were grilled about diplomatic missteps regarding President Lee Myung-bak’s “Grand Bargain,” redeployment of troops to Afghanistan, and suspicions that the government is secretly pushing an inter-Korean summit.

Grand Bargain

Opposition lawmakers slammed the Grand Bargain, proposed by President Lee in September as a plan to denuclearize North Korea. Park Sun-young, lawmaker of the Liberty Forward Party (LFP), asked Prime Minister Chung Un-chan whether the Grand Bargain is the same as a package settlement, to which the prime minister confirmed that it is. Park then cynically asked why President Lee is using a policy the late President Kim Dae-jung proposed in 1994, but had ended 10 years ago when the then-opposition Grand National Party (GNP) protested. Park scolded Chung, asking him how the administration plans to resolve the diplomatic lack of courtesy, disgrace and missteps brought about by the announcement of the Grand Bargain. Noting the cold response other members of the six-party talks have shown regarding the Grand Bargain, she slammed the Lee administration as the “administration that proposed not the Grand Bargain, but the Grand Error,” and “lauds its unsubstantial diplomatic results.” Kim Choong-joh, lawmaker of the Democratic Party (DP), said that at a time when South Korea is trying to smoothly reopen the six-party talks, the Grand Bargain could mistakenly become a grand barrier.

Inter-Korean Summit

Both ruling and opposition lawmakers said rumors that North Korean and South Korean officials had secretly met to discuss an inter-Korean summit has caused confusion in North Korea policy, and called for the transparent push for an inter-Korean summit. GNP Lawmaker Gu Sang-chan said that if a summit is not pushed based on public consensus, it will cause a national division and make it impossible to push a stable North Korea policy. He criticized the rumored contacts as no different form secret contacts used by past administrations. DP lawmaker Moon Hak-jin said the secrecy runs counter to the transparency needed in inter-Korean dialogue stressed by the administration. Fellow DP Lawmaker Park Jie-won pressed the Prime Minister about the rumors of the secret meeting, noting that the Unification Minister has been playing dumb while the National Intelligence Service and Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) have confirmed that a meeting took place. In response to the repeated questions, Chung answered that he knew nothing. Concerning the push for an inter-Korean summit, Chung said the Lee administration maintains a flexible attitude and is prepared to hold a summit anywhere and under any condition as long as it accords with the administration’s principles.

Afghanistan Troop Re-deployment

Opinions were split among ruling and opposition lawmakers regarding the administration’s plan to send troops to Afghanistan, while Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan stressed the need to send troops. Responding to DP Lawmaker Kim Choong-joh, who asked if sending troops was really necessary at this dangerous time, Yu said he believes South Korea needs to endure that sacrifice. He added that just as South Korea has received help in the past, it now has an obligation to reciprocate as part of the international community.

GNP Lawmaker Kim Young-woo noted that the level of South Korea’s for Afghanistan is just 0.17 percent of total global support, and that this low contribution to the international community does not accord with South Korea’s prestige as the host nation of next year’s G20 summit, or with the aim to be a full-fledged global nation. On the other hand, DP Lawmaker Moon Hak-jin said that Afghanistan is a war zone in which there is no safe zone and it is meaningless to talk about combat troops and non-combat troops, as the people of Afghanistan view foreign troops as an occupation force helping the corrupt Afghan government. Moon asked why the government needs to send troops once again when Canada, Italy, Germany and Australia are considering withdrawing their troops.

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