PPP leader urges president to demand immediate apology from Pyongyang, warns he should step down if unwilling to protect citizens

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok [Newsis]
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok [Newsis]

People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok on Monday urged President Lee Jae Myung to "immediately demand an apology from North Korea and take strong countermeasures" in response to a North Korean landmine explosion. Jang added that if Lee "has no intention of protecting the people, he should step down from his position right now."

Speaking at a press briefing at the National Assembly, Jang said Lee had stayed silent even after North Korea planted landmines that blew off a soldier's foot, and had continued to grovel for peace even as Pyongyang fired missiles and mocked the South as a self-staged farce.

Jang then said Lee had shown what he called an anger-management problem toward Ukraine for returning North Korean prisoners of war — accusing it of making him look like a liar — while showing what he described as "self-destructive restraint" toward North Korea itself. "Can the military take appropriate action when the commander in chief behaves this way?" he said. "Just how serious a vulnerability does North Korea have over him?"

Jang said he did not believe Lee's silence toward the North stemmed solely from the illicit inter-Korean fund transfers. "The transfers have already been recognized by the courts and those involved were convicted," he said. "Prosecutors have indicted Lee on the grounds that he knew about them, and a guilty verdict at trial seems all but certain."

He added that the transfer case would ultimately be dropped from prosecution anyway, so that alone could not explain Lee's deference to Kim Jong-un. "I believe there is something more that is keeping him from saying anything about North Korea," Jang said. "If his attitude toward the North stays as it is, public suspicion will only grow."

Jang also took aim at the ongoing intraparty conflict over Kim Ji-yong, the nominee to lead the new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, saying the situation was "too embarrassing to watch." He said hardliners within the ruling camp were attacking Kim Ji-yong as a loyalist of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, while Lee was pushing back by calling him anti-Yoon. "Political neutrality is what matters most for an agency like this," Jang said, accusing the ruling side of dismantling the prosecution under the banner of fighting a politicized prosecutorial service, only to build what he called a "politically captured" replacement.

Jang warned that dismantling the prosecution would lead to investigative runarounds, delayed trials and buried cases, turning South Korea into what he called a "law-and-order hell" and leaving countless citizens in tears. "The people will hold them accountable for this," he said.


soho0902@heraldcorp.com