S. Korea's Cabinet Tenders Resignation en masseSouth Korea's cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Lee Han Dong, tendered its resignation Tuesday in connection with a no-confidence motion against Unification Minister Lim Dong Won passed at the National Assembly the previous day, a spokesman for the prime minister's office said.The resignation en masse was submitted at a regular cabinet meeting presided over by Lee, the spokesman said. Lee is to submit the resignations to President Kim Dae Jung later Tuesday at the Blue House presidential office. Meanwhile, senior secretaries for Kim also tendered resignations to the president in connection with the adoption of the opposition-introduced no-confidence vote against the unification minister. The resignation by cabinet members and presidential secretaries are seen as signaling Kim to conduct a major reshuffle in the cabinet, his secretaries and the ruling party leadership within this week at the earliest. The passage of the motion to remove Lim, who is North Korea policy chief, from his post dealt a serious blow to Kim's efforts to maintain the process of reconciliation and cooperation with DPRK. Lim has been widely regarded as the main architect of Kim's ''sunshine policy'' of promoting reconciliation and cooperation with the North. As chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the state intelligence organization, Lim helped arrange the historic inter-Korean summit between Kim and DPRK leader Kim Jong Il in June last year. After submitting his resignation, Lim said at a news conference the inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation process should be sustained through supra-partisan cooperation. At the same news conference, Lim expressed hope inter-Korean talks will resume soon and other inter-Korean agreements will be implemented to further improve relations between the North and South. |
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