A Los Angeles city planning commissioner aspiring to become the first Korean-American member of the House of Representatives in more than 18 years called Tuesday for President Donald Trump to adopt a new approach to the growing problem of North Korea.
"North Korea has conducted two underground nuclear tests and fired off dozens of ballistic missiles since 2016 in defiance of UN and international sanctions," said Robert Ahn, one of the two congressional candidates in the runoff election in California's 34th district.
Robert Ahn (Yonhap)
"The response from the Trump administration has been to simply become more aggressive towards North Korea without a real long-term plan," he said, urging Trump to rethink his North Korea policy and move away from the saber-rattling and get back to building coalition among the regional players, including China, Japan and South Korea.
Ahn came in second in April's by-election with 22.25 percent of the vote after California Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez's 25.36 percent.
The two advanced to the runoff vote set for June 6. The election was set up after Xavier Becerra left Congress to become California's attorney general.
Should Ahn win the election, he would be the first Korean-American to serve in the House since Jay Kim served in the House from 1993 to 1999. Ahn was born in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Southern California Law School. He has served as LA city planning commissioner since 2013. (Yonhap)
