By This is just another hint of what South Korean government is prepared to give up to the North Koreans during the second Inter-Korean Summit actual physical South Korean territory.
Lee told the parliamentary standing committee on unification the “characteristics and historical background” of the sea border are important, but so are “the purposes South Korea aims to achieve through the establishment of the maritime border.” The minister made the remarks in response to Grand National Party Rep. Shim Jae-yup, who had asked why South Korean soldiers risked their lives to protect the sea border if it was “not a territorial concept,” as Lee had asserted on Aug. 10. There has been intense speculation that South Korea will discuss redrawing the NLL at the upcoming inter-Korean summit.
Shim said Lee seemed to mean that the 2002 battle would not have occurred if Seoul had accepted Pyongyang’s demand to redraw the NLL. The lawmaker accused Lee of insulting the memory of the South Korean soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation.
It is quite sickening that Unifiction Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung is declaring that the six sailors killed and the eighteen more that were wounded in the deliberate North Korean attack died for nothing because they should not have been defending South Korean territory in the first place. The Roh Moo-hyun administration has been treating the soldiers killed in this battle as if they never existed, so it should come as no surprise that they are about to give up South Korean territory that has been defended for years with the blood of South Korean naval personnel. Can the men that died and were wounded that day be any more dishonored by this administration than by giving away the territory they gave their lives and blood to defend?
that...
6:03 am on August 18th, 2007 1
If my memory serves, and I think it does, the line that the North Korean patrol boats crossed wasn't even the maritime DMZ but a further buffer zone that South Korea drew on its side to discourage clashes.
It would also be great to get video clips of Kim Dae Jung (then president of the ROK) and others in his administration accepting Pyongyang's "apology" as quick as lightening — and read what that "apology" actually said —– the play on a split screen the quotes of outrage at the different apologies from the US side up and down the chain of command after the tank accident…..
6:44 am on August 18th, 2007 2
Roh's argument would make a hell of a lot more sense if he were talking about Tokdo. What's worth more, two knobs of guano or having fully normal diplomatic and economic relations with one of the world's largest economies, one that's a natural ally against Chinese domination of the region? Really, what does redrawing the NLL gain South Korea, except for a 6-minute pause before the next North Korean demand to redraw the line?
7:53 pm on August 18th, 2007 3
this is the typical liberal agenda
concede concede and concede some more
always so gracefully disgracing the military
6:40 am on August 19th, 2007 4
I have to ask one question. Why would anyone be willing to die to protect his country, when his country does not love him back and in this case blames him for being attacked? This is just very sick!
7:24 am on August 24th, 2007 5
[...] Ministry is obviously furious at the anti-Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung’s comments about redrawing the Northern Limit Line with North [...]