President Yoon and DP leader Lee agree to meet on Monday

General election 2024

Published: 26 Apr. 2024, 16:03 Updated: 26 Apr. 2024, 16:46

President Yoon and DP leader Lee agree to meet on Monday

Hong Chul-ho, the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, announces that President Yoon Suk Yeol will meet Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung on Monday during a press briefing at the presidential office in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Friday. [YONHAP]

President Yoon Suk Yeol will hold talks with liberal Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung at 2 p.m. Monday, according to the presidential office on Friday.

The announcement by Hong Chul-ho, the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, marks the first time that Yoon has scheduled an official meeting with Lee after the two men faced off during a closely contested presidential election held two years ago.

According to Hong, the presidential office and the DP agreed on the date after they held their third round of talks to set the agenda of the meeting on Friday morning.

Yoon called Lee over the phone to propose a meeting on April 19, over a week after the DP won a landslide victory in the April 10 general election over the conservative People Power Party, which supports the president.

But Yoon and Lee’s aides struggled to narrow their differences over which issues the pair should discuss during previous rounds of negotiations held on Tuesday and Friday.

The two sides reached an agreement on the date of the meeting shortly after the DP chief said that he was prepared to talk to the president without conditions.

“I will drop everything to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol first,” Lee said at a meeting of the DP’s Supreme Council at the National Assembly on Friday morning, adding that he wishes to schedule the meeting “as soon as possible.”

Lee also said that he plans to ask the president to undertake steps to address rising inflation and other livelihood issues that observers believe helped swing the election in favor of the DP.

“People feel that they are constantly under assault by threats to their livelihoods,” he said as he called on the government to “promptly come up with policies to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]