S. Korea president urges parliamentary ratification of Panmunjom declaration

SEOUL: President Moon Jaein on Monday called for swift efforts to have the outcome of his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ratified by the parliament, a move apparently aimed at ensuring the implementation of the interKorean agreement despite a possible change in government down the road, reported Yonhap news agency.

“I ask you to quickly start taking steps to have the declaration ratified as required under the law on the development of South-North Korea relations,” Moon said while meeting with his aides in a weekly meeting held at his office Cheong Wa Dae.

It marked the first time for the president or his government to note the need to have the latest interKorean agreement ratified by the National Assembly.

However, the issue has already become a source of contention between the rival parties with the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) vowing to block a bill on the ratification of the so-called Panmunjom Declaration at all cost.

The joint declaration was issued Friday when the leaders of the divided Koreas met in the border truce village of Panmunjom inside the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone.

In their joint declaration, the leaders declared there will never be another war on the Korean Peninsula, while agreeing to halt all their provocations and hostile acts against each other and reaffirming their commitment to complete denuclearisation of the peninsula.

The LKP has called it a fake show, staged to help the government and its ruling party in the upcoming mayoral and gubernatorial elections slated for June 13.

Moon insisted that having the declaration ratified by the parliament is a required, legal process, not a political event.

“Still, it would not be desirable should the parliament’s agreement become another source of political dispute,” he said.

The move to have the interKorean agreement ratified is apparently driven by the collapse of those reached at two previous inter-Korean summits, which were held in 2000 and 2007 under the former liberal administrations of late presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.

The former presidents’ immediate successor Lee Myung-bak shut down the tourism program to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang after a South Korean tourist was killed there upon entering a restricted area. The following administration under the ousted former President Park Geun-hye shut down the joint industrial complex in Kaesong amid North Korea’s military provocations.

Mount Kumgang and Kaesong, both once monuments of interKorean reconciliation and summits, remain closed. Moon said the agreement reached at the latest inter-Korean summit will mark a new chapter in world history.

“The Panmunjom Declaration is a declaration of peace that told the entire world there will no longer be any war or nuclear threats on the Korean Peninsula. I am confident a new era of peace will open on the Korean Peninsula,” he told the meeting according to Cheong Wa Dae pool reports.