The nation’s top lawmaker on Saturday renewed efforts to write a joint resolution with the U.S. Congress this year that could potentially touch on North Korea’s nuclear ambition and Japan’s war crimes to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

Rep. Chung Ui-hwa, the Speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly, proposed the plan to U.S. House Speaker John Boehner last week. Chung was to discuss it at the Center for Strategic & International Studies last Saturday until snowstorms canceled the event.

Boehner called it a “great idea.” But writing the resolution may spark unexpected disagreements between and within both countries, as it would be forced to mention, or ignore sensitive issues such as North Korea’s nuclear program, Japan’s World War II atrocities and territorial disputes.

“The letter will praise the relative peace in Northeast Asia over the past 70 years after World War II, which gave rise to prosperous economies in China, South Korea and Japan,” a South Korean parliamentary source familiar with the proposal said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“The resolution will urge North Korea to forfeit its nuclear weapons, and the peaceful reunification of the two Koreas,” the source added, noting it could also ask Japan and its neighbors to “resolve disagreements” over history.

The source said it was uncertain if the resolution would explicitly mention the comfort women issue. It was also highly unlikely to mention territorial disagreements among Japan and its neighbors.

Many in China and South Korea have been demanding Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reissue “more sincere” apologies for Imperial Japan’s sexual imprisonment of thousands of Asian women during the war, euphemistically known as the comfort women issue.

Abe’s apparent denials of the atrocities have sparked anger among Chinese and South Koreans, and worsened ties among the nations. Territorial disputes between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea, and Japan’s contestation of a set of islets held by South Korea have worsened the situation.

The U.S. is expected to be reluctant to take actions that could provoke Japan, a key ally, by openly siding with South Korea and China in the issues of such a resolution, analysts have said.

Chung’s potential resolution could also spark protest from constituents in South Korea, who could ask for much stronger wording in any joint resolution with the U.S., against North Korea.

If the U.S. ultimately declines to write the joint resolution, South Korea’s legislature is considering writing an exclusive one before Aug. 15, the date marking the end of World War II and Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 35-year occupation of the country.

Discussions on the details of the resolution have been initiated by Chung and the foreign affairs committee chief of the South Korean Assembly, Rep. Na Kyung-won, according to Assembly sources.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)