President Park Geun-hye on Monday took a swipe at a group of opposition lawmakers who left for China to discuss the planned deployment of an advanced U.S. antimissile system, pleading again for bipartisan cooperation in countering North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threats.
Six first-term lawmakers from the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea flew to China on Monday for a three-day visit.
During the trip, they plan to meet with Chinese officials and scholars, among others, to discuss Seoul and Washington's plan to station a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery on the peninsula by end-2017.
Their visit to Beijing comes amid intense opposition from the presidential office, ruling party and some within their own party ranks, who said their visit would only worsen national division over THAAD and help strengthen China's stance against it.
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President Park Geun-hye speaks during a meeting with her senior secretaries at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Aug. 8. (Yonhap) |
"When it comes to such a security issue where people's lives are at stake, there must not be (differences) between ruling and opposition parties, or (divergent views) depending on their political views," the commander-in-chief said during a meeting with her senior secretaries.
"Some in political circles have openly made ridiculous claims that South Korea has nothing to say due to the THAAD plan even if the North engages in another provocation, while some lawmakers who sympathized with China's stance, said they would visit China to exchange views on the THAAD issue," she added.
The chief executive also reiterated that the allies' decision to deploy a THAAD battery was an "inevitable, self-defense" measure to safeguard the nation and its people and prepare against growing North Korean threats.
"Particularly at such a juncture, the ruling and opposition parties should be united, and trust the government," she said.
"It is the basic obligation of politicians, who have been given the authority (to lead state affairs) on behalf of the people, to cooperate in a bipartisan manner when it comes to national security-related issues rather than aggravating internal problems," she said.
The MPK upbraided Park for "meddling" in lawmakers' diplomatic activities and aggravating tension with it.
"Is it appropriate for the president to condemn opposition lawmakers' activities as ones that sympathize with China and ludicrous ones that are in tune with the North?" party spokesman Rep. Ki Dong-min told reporters.
Political circles have been divided over the disputed deployment plan.
The ruling Saenuri Party has espoused the plan, while the MPK has failed to adopt a unified stance over it. The minor opposition People's Party has opposed the deployment.
Meanwhile, Park called for "active cooperation" from political and medical circles in government efforts to expand telemedicine, which her administration says will give easier access to medical services to the elderly, physically challenged, front-line troops and others in hard-to-reach regions.
Her government's initiative to expand telemedicine has faced strong opposition from a vast majority of doctors who fear that the Internet-based medical platform will cause misdiagnoses and hurt businesses of small clinics.
On the economic front, Park stressed the importance of local businesses advancing into "high-value," new industrial sectors through preemptive and timely restructuring efforts. The president also said that the ongoing corporate restructuring should proceed in a "forward-looking" manner to help create future growth engines.
"Our companies should promptly dispose of their noncompetitive projects through a preemptive business realignment," Park said, noting that foreign enterprises are doing all they can to sharpen their business competitiveness. (Yonhap)
