President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a press conference at the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
President Yoon Suk Yeol will not attend the opening ceremony of the regular session of the National Assembly early this week, a presidential official said Sunday, citing the opposition party’s unilateral actions to pass critical bills.
The National Assembly is set to begin its regular session on Monday and it is customary for the president to attend the opening event and deliver a speech.
“It is appropriate to first normalize the National Assembly, which has been misusing special counsel and impeachment procedures, before inviting the president,” a presidential official told Yonhap News Agency.
“We can only suspect that the intention is to invite the president to then only stage a protest and humiliate him in public,” the official said.
The opening ceremony for the 22nd Assembly, originally set for July 5, was boycotted by the ruling People Power Party (PPP) amid intense partisan strife over the opposition-led Assembly’s unilateral legislative actions. The PPP had also requested that Yoon not attend the ceremony.
The ceremony had been put off indefinitely, until the rival parties agreed to hold the event in conjunction with the start of the 22nd Assembly’s first regular session.
If Yoon does not attend, it will be the first time since 1987 that a president has skipped the opening ceremony. (Yonhap)
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