The ruling Grand National Party on Monday renewed its resolve to vote on the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement with the key parliamentary plenary session scheduled for Thursday after weeks of political wrangling over the ratification bill.

“The Korea-U.S. FTA is a matter of national interest and of paramount importance; we can no longer tolerate the opposition’s approach (to the FTA) out of partisan interests,” GNP spokesman Kim Ki-hyun said in a briefing after the party’s supreme council meeting Monday.

“The GNP has agreed to squarely handle FTA ratification as early as possible.”

GNP leader Hong Joon-pyo on Monday reiterated that parliamentary approval of the FTA, which was signed in 2007 and revised late last year, can no longer be delayed.

“We are well aware of the opposition’s strategy for commotion at the National Assembly,” Hong said at the meeting.

Hong accused the opposition of employing “a deceitful scheme” to stage a show a month ahead of their party convention to “launder itself and prepare for the general elections.”

“The FTA should be taken care of after a final checkup,” he said.

The main opposition Democratic Party continues to demand a renegotiation with the U.S. over clauses that allow international arbitrators such as a World Bank affiliate to settle disputes between American investors and the Korean government.

GNP leaders have refuted the opposition’s claims that the Investor-State Dispute clauses would harm Seoul’s policies by saying that such disputes can be arbitrated not just by the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute, but also by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law or the International Court of Arbitration under the International Chamber of Commerce.

President Lee Myung-bak’s top aide for political affairs Kim Hyo-jae sent a letter to each of the GNP’s 168 lawmakers on Monday, requesting prompt voting.

“The ISD issue is directly connected to the identity of the GNP,” Kim said in the four-page letter.

Kim wrote that open-door trade was the top factor that made today’s South Korea different from North Korea, and that the ISD was the “foundation of free trade and investment guarantee.”

DP leader Sohn Hak-kyu proposed putting the FTA to a referendum.

Hong said the FTA is not subject to a referendum according to the Constitution as it is not a major policy concerning national security.

Nam Kyung-pil, GNP’s supreme council member and chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, trade and unification, criticized Sohn’s suggestion, referring to the DP’s denunciation of former Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s proposal for a referendum on free school meals. The DP had slammed Oh for arousing political conflicts and boycotted the vote.

Newly elected opposition-backed Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon on Monday urged the central government to review the ISD clauses in the FTA. Park filed the demands as “Seoul City’s opinion” to the ministries of foreign affairs and home affairs.

As for the minor Democratic Labor Party’s sit-in at the committee’s meeting room, Nam said he will run the panel within the boundaries of the National Assembly law.

GNP floor leader Hwang Woo-yea said in a radio interview Monday that the standing committee can hold its meeting elsewhere.

Sohn said at the DP’s supreme council meeting Monday that he could see “many citizens expressing their will against the ISD” during his weekend rally against the FTA in downtown Seoul.

Sohn repeated his position that the FTA would “sell off sovereignty” and “widen the income gap.”

DP floor leader Kim Jin-pyo said the National Assembly would be able to discuss next year’s budget bill only when the GNP accepts the DP’s demands for a renegotiation on the FTA.

By Kim So-hyun (sophie@heraldcorp.com)