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DP head demands Lee redo U.S. FTA
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Sohn, president have rare meeting June 28, 2011
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President Lee Myung-bak, left, and the Democratic Party chairman, Sohn Hak-kyu, walk together in the Blue House yesterday morning to have a discussion on the Korea-U.S. FTA, college tuition, job creation, household debt and savings banks. [YONHAP] |
Korea’s main opposition party leader insisted during talks with President Lee Myung-bak yesterday that the government reopen negotiations with the United States to revise the long-pending free trade agreement between the two countries, both sides said yesterday.
The renegotiation demand by Sohn Hak-kyu, the Democratic Party chairman, is not new. But yesterday’s reiteration bodes badly for the government’s push to get ratification from the National Assembly.
Signed in 2007 and supplemented last December, the agreement has been awaiting approval from the legislatures of both of the countries.
During the talks, Lee asked Sohn for “active cooperation” on the FTA issue “for the sake of the country’s future,” according to a joint statement issued after the talks.
But Sohn said the agreement had “greatly lost its balance” and said it must be renegotiated, the statement said.
The trade pact was one of six agenda items for the rare meeting between Lee and the opposition leader.
Yesterday’s talks were the first of their kind in about three years. In September 2008, Lee held formal talks with then-DP leader Chung Sye-kyun.
The other issues discussed were job creation, mounting public calls to reduce college tuition, ways to curb household debt and the opposition’s demand for a supplementary budget.
On the tuition issue, Lee and Sohn agreed that college fees need to be lowered and the idea should be pursued, along with a restructuring of colleges to weed out poorly managed schools. But they “differed on specific ways” to cut tuition, the joint statement said without elaborating.
The sides agreed to continue discussions on the issue, it said.
Lee and Sohn agreed that the government should put forth a package of measures to curb household debt to ensure it won’t pose a threat to the country’s economy.
The package will include measures to keep household debt below an appropriate level while also reducing the burden on households, the statement said.
The two sides also agreed to cooperate closely to get to the bottom of a massive corruption scandal involving savings banks and to work out measures to prevent recurrences of similar cases.
They also agreed to work together to create as many jobs as possible and narrow the gap between regular and temporary workers, the statement said.
The meeting drew attention because Sohn is considered a leading opposition contender for next year’s presidential race. Sohn’s popularity and standing in his party received a big boost in April when he won a parliamentary by-election in an electoral district that has been considered a ruling party stronghold.
Despite the lack of any breakthrough agreement from the talks, presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said the talks were meaningful in that they paved the way for the two sides to “meet at any time and discuss difficult issues.”
DP spokesman Lee Yong-sup also gave a positive assessment, saying that Sohn talked about economic difficulties ordinary people face. He said the meeting will serve as an opportunity for the presidential office to focus policies on caring for middle and lower-income Koreans.
Yonhap
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