South Korea’s main opposition party on Tuesday called for resuming discussions on a set of bills aimed at improving North Korea’s human rights situation.
Rival parties — the ruling Saenuri Party and main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) — have wrangled for years over the details of the bills due mainly to opposition party concerns they could worsen already strained ties with the North.
North Korea is accused of serious human rights abuses, ranging from holding hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in concentration camps to committing torture and carrying out public executions. Pyongyang flatly denies the accusations as a U.S.-led attempt to topple its regime.
“We propose merging and reviewing the Saenuri Party’s five bills related to North Korea’s human rights situation and NPAD’s three North Korean human rights bills at the (relevant) standing committee in April,” Park Wan-joo, NPAD’s floor spokesman, said during a press briefing.
Park stressed, however, that his party is opposed to the ruling party’s proposal to assist civic groups engaged in sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets via balloon across the border.
The leaflet campaigns have been a source of renewed tension between the Koreas in recent months, leading to a brief exchange of machine gun fire across the border in October.
NPAD believes the North should make efforts to improve human rights conditions for its people as the South promotes the North Korean people’s rights to freedom and life, Park said. Such efforts should be made in a way that helps improve inter-Korean ties and bring peace and stability to the Korean Peninsula, he added.
“We hope a reasonable alternative will be found through careful discussion and consultation (at the standing committee),” the spokesman said. (Yonhap)
