hankyoreh

By Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter

Democratic United Party (DUP) floor leader Park Jie-won said June 28 that South Korea “must not deliver key military secrets like human intelligence (HUMINT) to Japan when Tokyo is looking to acquire nuclear weapons.”

“We are opposed to the South Korea-Japan [military] intelligence protection agreement because we know full well just how the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are going to develop,” he added.

In Park’s view, signing the agreement would lead to increased military tensions between a “southern bloc” consisting of South Korea, the US, and Japan and a “northern bloc” made up of North Korea, China, and Russia.

Park also disclosed discussions he had had with Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan over the agreement. Park said he met the two on May 17 and told them it was not desirable to mention the agreement or the sharing of North Korea intelligence at a time when matters such as Dokdo, comfort women, and distortions of history in textbooks remain unresolved.

In response, he was given a promise that the matter would be explained before the opening of the National Assembly, he reported.

Park also said that he telephoned Kim Kwan-jin to discuss the intelligence agreement on June 25, but that the defense minister did not tell him about the imminent passage in the Cabinet, even after Park noted that the National Assembly would soon be in session and asked that Kim submit the matter to public debate there.

This means the agreement was passed behind closed doors prior to the National Assembly session, even after the foreign and defense ministers made a pledge to the main opposition party floor leader to bring the matter into public debate after the National Assembly began its session.

During a senior DUP policy meeting on June 28, Park reiterated his demand for the government to observe its promise by postponing the Cabinet vote on the agreement and reaching a decision through discussions in the National Assembly.

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