South Korean parliament puts off vote on sending troops to Iraq

South Korean parliament puts off vote on sending troops to Iraq

Lim Chang-Won Agence France-Presse Seoul

South Korea's parliament, fearing a public backlash, shelved a vote on Tuesday on sending troops to support U.S. war efforts in Iraq as anti-war protests mounted here.

President Roh Moo-Hyun expressed regret, saying the dispatch of troops would have helped South Korea persuade the United States to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis peacefully.

Roh's proposal last week to contribute some 700 non-combatants to the war effort sparked criticism and a rising tide of anti-war protests. Newspaper surveys showed up to 80 percent of South Koreans oppose the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

"Both parties agreed to put off the vote," Chung Kyun-Hwan, floor leader of Roh's ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), told reporters after the bill to send troops faced strong opposition from voters.

The conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which holds a majority in parliament, initially supported the president's pledge to dispatch troops.

"Our party cannot go and take the blame for sending troops alone," GNP spokesman Suh Myong-Rim told AFP, adding Roh's proposal would be put to the assembly again next week.

"If we send troops there, South Korea would be recorded as a war criminal in history," Kim Hong-Shin, a GNP member of parliament, told a GNP meeting.

The delay followed scuffles outside the National Assembly between riot police and hundreds of anti-war protesters. Police detained 26 radical students who broke into the National Assembly compound during the debate.

Thousands of riot police had formed human barricades to block the protests by nuns, monks and civic group activists.

The influential Korean Bar Association has ruled the war on Iraq illegal and South Korea's two umbrella labor groups, which have more than 1.6 million members, have threatened a general strike if the assembly approves Roh's decision.

The Peoples Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, the most influential civic group in South Korea, threatened to sue against any move to send troops to Iraq, citing the constitution banning any war of aggression.

Liberal lawmakers warned the troop dispatch would rekindle anti-US sentiment.

Some 37,000 American troops are stationed here as a deterrent against possible aggression from North Korea which invaded South Korea in 1950, triggering a devastating three-year war.

But the 50-year-old military alliance between Washington and Seoul has been strained by massive anti-US demonstrations following the deaths of two schoolgirls last year in a traffic accident involving a U.S. military vehicle.

The debate highlights differences here on how to handle the five-month-old stand-off over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive which has heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.

"The government submitted the bill out of a need to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue and in consideration of the Korea- U.S. alliance," MDP spokesman Moon Seok-Ho said.

Roh has ruled out the use of sanctions or military action against North Korea. Washington has said it is keeping all options open, including the use of force, while seeking a peaceful end to the crisis.

Roh dismissed concerns here as groundless that a new flare-up across the world's last Cold War frontier could emerge following hostilities against Iraq.