Lee Wants Heads to Roll

Opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang asked Thursday that President Kim Dae-jung publicly apologize for the incursion of North Korean commercial ships into the South's territorial waters and fire Defense Minister Kim Dong-shin for allowing it.

"Protecting our land and territorial waters is a fundamental duty of a nation and its chief executive," Mr. Lee said in a hastily-called news conference at Grand National Party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul.

Mr. Lee also asked North Korea to apologize, and commit to not repeating the intrusion in the future.

"It was a well-calculated aggression on the part of North Korea that clearly violates the sea boundaries maintained since the 1953 armistice," Mr. Lee said.

He added that a Seoul visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will not improve relations between the two Koreas if national security is threatened.

"Should the Kim Dae-jung administration hand over either our sovereignty or national security in the process of begging for Chairman Kim Jong-il's visit, our people will not stand for it," the opposition leader said.

He denied speaking out for political reasons, but out of a necessity to call attention to the way national security is being compromised for inter-Korean reconciliation.

"Our nations are governed by an armistice, which means that when North Korean ships enter southern territorial waters, the Navy should issue a warning and then detain the vessels," Mr. Lee said.

"We must recognize the two sides to inter-Korean relations; the need to achieve cooperation and peace as well as the military confrontation in which the North is an 'enemy-state,'" he added.

He expressed concern over the speculation that the administration may play the so-called North Korea card to end the diplomatic stalemate on the peninsula and play down domestic challenges.

The opposition leader said that he favors meeting with President Kim Dae-jung in principle, but did not commit to a date.

by Ko Jung-ae