The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) urged President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday to use a planned summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to demand Tokyo withhold its plan to release radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
Yoon is expected to meet bilaterally with Kishida this week on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania. The meeting comes days after the International Atomic Energy Agency gave a go-ahead to the Fukushima water discharge plan last week.
"Ahead of a Korea-Japan summit, I suggest three measures," DP floor leader Park Kwang-on said during a party meeting. "The first is for the president to demand Japan withhold the dumping of Fukushima nuclear material into the ocean."
"The presidential office has stated it puts the highest priority on people's health and safety," he said. "If so, the answer is to withhold the ocean dumping."
Additionally, Park urged the government to file a law suit against Japan at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and bring up the issue at the upcoming Consultative Meeting of Contracting Parties to the London Convention and Protocol.
Source: Yonhap News Agency