DP grills foreign minister over Fukushima inspection

Diplomacy

Published: 24 May. 2023, 17:12

DP grills foreign minister over Fukushima inspection

Foreign Minister Park Jin responds to questions during the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee meeting in Seoul on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

The ongoing Korean inspection of the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan took center stage in the political wranglings at the National Assembly's foreign policy committee meeting on Wednesday.

“Why is the Korean government so eager to aid Japan in releasing its nuclear-contaminated water?” asked Democratic Party (DP) Rep. Kim Sang-hee to Foreign Minister Park Jin in the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee meeting on Wednesday.

“By sending a team to the plant to simply examine the facilities, they will not be able to confirm whether the water is actually safe to be released,” she said. “What the Korean government is doing is basically giving Japan an easy way out by sending a team to take a cursory look.”

Park was grilled on the subject for some two hours in the committee meeting on Wednesday morning, mainly by DP lawmakers. The questioning continued in the afternoon.

A team of 21 experts from Korea have been in Japan since Sunday to examine the ruined Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and Japan’s plan to release its treated water into the ocean.

The visit, struck as an agreement between President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during Kishida’s visit to Seoul earlier in May, was hailed as an achievement by the People Power Party (PPP) members during the committee meeting.

“We already have an expert from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety [KINS] who is analyzing the samples of treated water provided via the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA],” said PPP Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun in the meeting. “By sending 19 experts from KINS to the plant to actually see the facilities themselves, Korea should be able to extend its research and inspection of the water treatment system of the plant.”

The DP members were “instigating unnecessary fear” in the public by its political wranglings, Yoon said.

The Korean team, headed by Yoo Guk-hee, chairman of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, consists of 19 experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and one from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology.

From Tuesday to Wednesday, the team was visiting the plant and its facilities to examine the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) that handles the treatment of contaminated water at the ruined plant, and the K4 tanks storing the treated water.

“On Wednesday, we are to measure the performance of ALPS by checking the data on the concentration [of the radioactive materials] in the water before treatment, and comparing it with the concentration after the treatment,” said the team in its statement issued on Tuesday evening after its day’s inspections.

A massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011, destroying the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Japan plans to gradually release tons of treated radioactive water from the defunct power plant into the sea — a plan that was announced in 2021 and has drawn strong opposition from fishing communities both in Korea and Japan.

The plant’s operator, Tepco, has said that all radioactive materials have been removed from the water except tritium, which experts say is not harmful to human health in small amounts.

The plan has received the support of the IAEA.

Foreign Minister Park dismissed the accusations by some DP lawmakers in the committee meeting.

“This inspectional visit is not a show, our experts are on the ground to examine the facilities with their own eyes so that they can tell the Korean public what they were able to confirm in person,” Park said in response to a question from DP Rep. Woo Sang-ho.

“The team will present their scientific and objective findings when they return to Korea,” he added. “The Korean government remains committed to ensuring transparency in the treatment and release of the contaminated water.”

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]