Lee Jae-myung Believes Electing Yoon Suk-yeol Will Lead to War with North Korea

Lee Jae-myung is using the current war in Ukraine to claim the same thing can happen in Korea if Yoon Suk-yeol is elected:

Rival presidential candidates of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) clashed over their differing views of the lessons of Russia’s attack on Ukraine during their TV debate, Friday. The DPK’s Lee Jae-myung stressed a leader’s diplomatic capability, while the PPP’s Yoon Suk-yeol highlighted military deterrence to facilitate peace on the Korean Peninsula. 

“A novice politician who only has six months of political experience became the country’s leader and caused a major clash by inciting Russia with a hasty promise of Ukraine’s NATO admission,” Lee said of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was an actor and comedian before he was elected as the country’s leader in April 2019. 

“This is an example of a diplomatic failure. Yoon is too aggressive and rough in his diplomatic remarks, such as his pledge to establish South Korea’s capability to launch preemptive strikes (against North Korea).”

Lee’s comment came after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Sunday. Along with international condemnation of Russia’s moves, criticism is also mounting over Zelenskyy’s diplomatic miscalculation, which is being blamed for steering his country towards a clash with Russia.

Yonhap

Here is how Yoon responded to Lee’s remarks which criticized his attempts to sign an end of war declaration with North Korea:

On the other hand, PPP candidate Yoon criticized Ukraine’s reliance on diplomatic agreements to maintain peace and emphasized the importance of military power and strong alliances to guarantee national security.

“You can only prevent war when you have the capability for preemptive strikes and have the intent to do so … I believe the case of Ukraine shows that you cannot protect national security and peace with paper and ink,” Yoon said, referring to the Minsk agreements or a series of pacts that sought to end fighting with Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

“Candidate Lee and the current DPK administration stress the importance of an end-of-war declaration with North Korea, which will be done only on paper with ink. With North Korea refusing to give up its nuclear program, pushing forward the end-of-war declaration is the same as the case of Ukraine.” 

You can read more at the link, but if Yoon really wanted to hit Lee even harder he should of mentioned how Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees back in the 1990’s. Look how that paper and ink agreement worked out for them. Does anyone really think that North Korea will abide by any paper and ink agreement as well?