People Power Party offers to 'meet in middle'; Opposition-led parliamentary committee to summon president to testify

People Power Party Floor Leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong (Yonhap)
People Power Party Floor Leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong (Yonhap)

The ruling People Power Party said Tuesday it would come up with its own bill for opening a special counsel investigation into President Yoon Suk Yeol’s Dec. 3 martial law declaration, calling on the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea to “meet in the middle.”

Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, the People Power Party's floor leader, said at a press conference that his party plans on proposing a special counsel bill without the accusation raised by the Democratic Party that Yoon sought to provoke North Korea.

The ruling party floor leader stated that some of the lines of investigation outlined in the Democratic Party’s version of the bill “undermine the nation’s North Korea and national security policies.”

In the special counsel bill submitted last week, the Democratic Party suggests that Yoon tried to trigger an armed conflict with North Korea by playing anti-Kim Jong-un broadcasts along the inter-Korean border and sending drones into Pyongyang.

“I don’t see how our party can accept the bill as it is written by the Democratic Party,” Kweon said. “Our party is willing to meet in the middle and negotiate the specifics of the bill before it is put to vote.”

Kweon said he would accept the Democratic Party's proposal to launch a special counsel investigation, on top of investigations already undertaken by police and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, and asked that the main opposition party in return consider its revisions.

According to Kweon, the ruling party’s draft of the special counsel bill would remove accusations pertaining to Yoon plotting to provoke an inter-Korean war and reduce the scope of the investigation to exclude the possible targeting of members of the public for incitement of insurrection through online communication.

“Besides some of the revisions that we deem as necessary, the rest are not different from the one that has been authored by the Democratic Party,” the ruling party floor leader said.

Kweon also said the CIO, which has no authority to investigate insurrection or treason, the two crimes that the Democratic Party is accusing Yoon of committing, should call off its attempts to arrest the president.

Kweon said because a special counsel, who would be appointed once the bill's passage, would be leading the ongoing investigations the CIO needed to drop its “unauthorized” execution of the arrest warrant of Yoon.

Also on Tuesday, a Democratic Party-led committee voted to summon Yoon to testify before the public in a parliamentary hearing on his martial law declaration, despite ruling party protests.