Da Chosun ran two rather fun-to-read interviews concerning the Korea-Chile FTA mess — one featured the Chilean ambassador diplomatically expressing who pissed he was, and the other featured the Speaker of the National Assembly expressing quite bluntly how pissed he was.
Money quote from the Chilean ambassador:
What do you think will become of relations between Chile and South Korea should the ratification vote fail in the end to pass the Assembly?
I won’t answer a hypothetical question. Chile ratified a vote on the FTA with the U.S. in four months and a vote on the FTA with the EU in three months. But we’ve been waiting more than seven months for South Korea to ratify the vote.
And from the Speaker, we have:
What is going to happen to the Iraq dispatch bill and the FTA ratification bill?
The two bills can not pass through the Assembly if the ruling and opposition parties continue to behave like they have recently. I made it clear to the ruling Uri Party?s floor leader, Kim Keun-tae, that the dispatch bill can not pass if even the ruling party won’t support the bill that the president proposed. I will lay the FTA bill before a general meeting of the Assembly only when I am certain that the bill will pass the Assembly. How can the National Assembly of an export-driven nation delay ratifying an FTA bill four times?
And:
I think that the Assembly Speaker is busier that the President or leaders of the ruling and opposition parties.
(Raising his voice) It is unprecedented. When the President draws up a policy, the President himself must set out to persuade the public and lawmakers. But what has he done so far? And to the majority party, the GNP, I also asked, “What on earth have you been doing till now?”
Ouch.
