The National Assembly’s Speaker Rep. Chung Sye-kyun on Sunday called for the government to shift its hawkish stance toward North Korea and pledged parliamentary support for jump-starting long-stalled six-party talks.

In a speech marking the 68th anniversary of Constitution Day, the top lawmaker also urged the political parties to speed up efforts to amend the Constitution, expressing hopes that the lawmakers will finish the job within the first half of their four-year term.

“The 1987 Constitution is like wearing clothes that went out of fashion. It has failed to properly reflect social changes,” Chung said.

“The Constitution needs to be changed according to the environment and I believe there is public consensus over the need to reform the old-fashioned system,” he said.

The six-term lawmaker has been stressing the need for the constructional amendment since taking office in June. He suggested that the current Constitution needs to be revised no later than 2018, adding that it fails to capture the need for division of power shown in modern democracies.

South Korea’s Constitution was last revised in the wake of the June 10 Democratization Uprising to adopt a direct election system and to reinstate the authority of the parliament, but the 30-year-law has often been blamed for granting excessive power to the president and limiting that of the legislature.

The liberal-minded lawmaker devoted a portion of his remarks to criticizing President Park Geun-hye’s hard-line approach toward North Korea. He demanded the government focus on fostering dialogue and cooperation with Pyongyang to pave the way for peace and cooperation between the two Koreas.

“For the sake of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, I urge North Korea to change its attitude and I ask of our government to shift from focusing only on imposing sanctions on the North. I will do whatever it takes to make that happen,” he said.

In order to achieve the goal, the speaker would have to accelerate his efforts to jump-start the long-stalled six party talks. He said that he would build consensus over the move among legislative bodies from the member states involved in the talks.

By Yeo Jun-suk(jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)