In unilateral vote led by opposition, Assembly passes resolution against Fukushima water release

The ruling People Power Party lawmakers leave the plenary session chamber on Friday to protest the opposition Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers passing a resolution on Japan wastewater release plan. (Yonhap)

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Friday unilaterally passed a resolution calling for the Japanese government to scrap its plan to discharge the treated wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant into the sea.

As of now, over 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater used to cool three of the plant's reactors after meltdowns during the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 are being stored in some 1,000 giant tanks on the site.

The resolution urges the Japanese government to drop its plan to discharge of the wastewater “immediately” and the South Korean government to take steps to stop it.

In addition to expanding radioactive testing of marine products, the resolution calls on the South Korean government to file a complaint with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over the planned discharge of the Fukushima wastewater, which the Japanese government has said will be treated and diluted so that the radionuclides in it are reduced to legally releasable levels.

The safety of the plan to filter, dilute and discharge the wastewater is being inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency and a South Korean team of experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, as agreed on at the Seoul summit meeting between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida last month.

The Democratic Party first proposed the resolution in the parliamentary committee for oceans and fisheries on Tuesday, where it passed as they hold the majority, and then brought the resolution to a vote in Friday's plenary session. However, saying that they were not given advance notice of the resolution in the committee, the ruling People Power Party boycotted the plenary vote.

Ruling party Rep. Lee Dal-gon of the Assembly’s oceans committee said the resolution’s passage was a “one-sided sneak attack” by the Democratic Party.

“The Democratic Party passed it without even giving lawmakers of the other party time to look at the resolution,” said Lee.

Rep. Chung Woo-taik, the Assembly’s deputy speaker and five-time lawmaker of the ruling party, said in a statement on this day the Democratic Party was “repeatedly abusing its majority in the Assembly to an anti-democratic degree.”

Yang Seung-ham, a professor emeritus of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul, said in a phone call with The Korea Herald that unilateral passage of resolutions “may hurt the credibility of South Korean Assembly resolutions” and “reduces them to a tool for domestic politics.”

By Kim Arin(arin@heraldcorp.com)