National Assembly Speaker Chung Sye-kyun left Monday morning for the United States on his first overseas trip since he assumed office, seeking to enhance ties between the legislatures of the two countries, his office said.

During his eight-day visit, which came in the wake of North Korea’s most recent and largest nuclear test last Friday, the legislature chief is expected to call for a strengthened Seoul-Washington alliance against the communist state’s escalating military provocations.
Eyes are also fixed on Chung’s planned meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is highly anticipated to make a bid in South Korea’s 2017 presidential election as a candidate of the ruling conservative Saenuri Party.

Accompanying the speaker on his trip are the floor leaders of the leading political parties -- Reps. Chung Jin-suk of the ruling Saenuri Party, Woo Sang-ho of The Minjoo Party of Korea and Park Jie-won of the People’s Party. This is the first time that ruling and opposition whips have taken part in an assembly speaker’s official overseas trip.

Park, who is also the interim chairman for his party, departed on a separate flight later in the afternoon as he attended a meeting with President Park Geun-hye, along with the Saenuri and Minjoo Party chiefs.

Speaker Chung is scheduled to spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington to meet with scholars from key US think tanks and with Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan as well as exchange views on the security situation of the Korean Peninsula.

The two speakers will be discussing the plausibility of a joint parliamentary consultative group involving the US, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea -- an idea brought forward earlier by Chung as an alternative to the stalled six-party talks that had also included North Korea.

“The meeting (with Speaker Ryan) will be significant direct communication between the legislatures of the two countries, following North Korea’s nuclear provocation,” said Chung’s office through a press release.

On Thursday, the speaker is set to move over to New York, where he will meet with UN Secretary-General Ban at the international organization’s headquarters to discuss inter-Korean relations.

Chung, a member of the Minjoo Party before he assumed his neutral position, had earlier disapproved of Ban’s likely candidacy in the presidential race.

“I believe it is inappropriate for the UN secretary-general to gear up for presidency at this point in time and that his move is to bring disgrace to his country,” Chung said in May, before he was named parliamentary speaker.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)