South Korea's political parties on Sunday paid tribute to soldiers killed in the sinking of the Cheonan warship by North Korea as the country observed the seventh anniversary of one of the deadliest incidents between the two countries since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The 1,200-ton Navy corvette with 104 personnel aboard sank in waters of Baengnyeong Island in Yellow Sea on March 26, 2010, killing 46 sailors. A multinational investigation team concluded that a North Korean torpedo was responsible for the sinking, but Pyongyang has denied its involvement.
(Yonhap)
"We pray the soldiers' souls may rest in peace. Any military threats and provocations detrimental to the trust and peace between the South and North should not be tolerated under any situation, Park Kyung-mee, spokeswoman for the liberal Democratic Party said in her commentary.
She also called for the North to stop the development of nuclear weapons and realize that its repeated military threats and provocations will make itself isolated in the international community.
In his commentary, Kim Kyung-jin, spokesman for the centrist People's Party, also said the party "remembers the fallen sailors' sacrifice and will return their favor by making strenuous efforts to defend the country on our own."
"We will make the peninsula peaceful so that the sacrifice of those martyrs who lost their lives for their country would not be fruitless," Kim added.
Han Chang-min, spokesman for the minor left-wing Justice Party, said in a verbal commentary that the party will make efforts to bring peace and security to the peninsula in order to avoid the recurrence of people's sacrifice arising from the confrontational structure of the two Koreas.
The Liberty Party of Korea, the former ruling Saenuri Party, also offered condolences on the death of the soldiers but criticized those who it calls pro-North Korean groups for causing an internal feud in the South.
"Even though the country was in a serious security crisis (due to the warship sinking incident), people sympathetic to North Korea has given rise to conflict in our country by denying the government's announcement of the North being behind the sinking," Chung June-guil, spokesman for the party, said in his commentary.
The minor Bareun Party blamed the Democratic, People's and Justice parties for opposing the planned deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system, known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), in spite of the North's increasing missile threats.
The Oh Shin-hwan, spokesman for the party, issued a commentary that the three parties have submitted a resolution calling for the government not to push ahead with the deployment, saying "(The three parties think nothing of the sacrifices made by the soldiers and are blinded by their own interests and policies rather than national interest." (Yonhap)