South Korean lawmakers are preparing to attend US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration later this month, sources said Wednesday, amid concerns that President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law decree has cast a shadow over the decades-old alliance between Seoul and Washington.
In recent days, the National Assembly has been forming a delegation to the US for the inauguration ceremony scheduled to take place in Washington on Jan. 20, according to sources. The delegation will consist of some seven members from the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, including committee chair and ruling People Power Party Rep. Kim Seok-ki and lawmakers from both the ruling and the opposition parties, sources explained.
The delegation is scheduled to leave Seoul on Jan. 18 to attend the inauguration and discuss several diplomatic and security issues, including those involving North Korea and the South Korea-US alliance. They are currently in discussions with related officials about holding a meeting with the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during their visit, sources added.
The lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea initially said they would not attend the inauguration after the party's leadership banned them from traveling abroad early this month to deal with issues stemming from Yoon's impeachment and the ongoing deliberations at the Constitutional Court. However, the leadership lifted the travel ban on Monday, citing a need to bolster exchanges between the South Korean and US legislatures.
Separately from the delegation, People Power Party Reps. Cho Jung-hoon and Kim Dae-sik were invited by Republican Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, respectively. The ruling party lawmakers currently plan to attend both the inauguration ceremony and the ball, an official at Cho's office told The Korea Herald.
"Reps. Cho and Kim were officially invited to the inauguration ball on Jan. 20 and are expected to also attend the ceremony that will take place before the ball," the official said.
Rep. Kim Dae-sik previously attended the 2008 inauguration of former US President Barack Obama, while Rep. Cho worked previously at the Washington-headquartered World Bank and at one point was the institution's country manager for Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile, the government, which remains in a leadership vacuum, due to several Cabinet members' resignations following Yoon's martial law decree last month and his impeachment by the opposition-led Assembly, has yet to announce or confirm the list of officials attending the inauguration ceremony.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong, said in a regular briefing last week, that it has been undecided whether South Korea's ambassador to the US Cho Hyun-dong would attend the inauguration ceremony. But observers say that Seoul's top envoy to the US is likely to attend the ceremony and the ball, as it is customary for the ambassador to attend the events.
Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun is currently on a visit to the US to meet with US government officials about bilateral economic exchanges ahead of the launch of the second Trump administration.
