국회의장-교섭단체 원내대표 긴급 회동…국회 파행 해법 못 찾아<br /><br /> Despite continuous meetings... an agreement between rival parties to normalize parliament seems far away.<br />A whole month was wasted in April,... and it's been pretty much the same situation in the first week of May.<br />Kim Min-ji has the latest from the national assembly. <br /> Despite another attempt to put an end to the paralysis,... rival parties only reaffirmed their differences.<br />The floor leaders of the country's major parties met with the speaker of the National Assembly on Friday afternoon... in hopes of reaching an agreement to end the month-long standstill.<br /><br /> "I organized this meeting in a desperate manner. I am ashamed, and I apologize to the people. It's already very late but we must normalize parliament. I'm speaking for the people, not for myself."<br /><br /> But despite almost two hours of closed-door talks... the rival parties are still at square one.<br /><br /> Currently, the biggest area of dispute is whether the ruling Democratic Party of Korea will accept an independent counsel probe into an online opinion-rigging scandal... allegedly involving one of its lawmakers.<br />Opposition parties have called on the ruling party to agree to a probe in exchange for getting things moving again.<br /> The ruling party indicated that it would accept their demand on two conditions: one, that the opposition agree to ratify the Panmunjom Declaration reached at last week's inter-Korean summit,... and two, that rival parties pass the government's extra budget bill.<br />Those two conditions prompted the floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party to go on a hunger strike until the ruling party agreed to accept the probe no strings attached.<br /><br /> It's unclear whether an agreement to normalize parliament will be reached anytime soon -- with rival parties so far apart.<br />On top of that, the term of the ruling party's floor leader comes to an end next week -- which doesn't give the parties a lot of time to achieve a breakthrough -- and the standoff could linger until the new whip takes his or her seat.<br /><br /> "But while that's one side of it,... there's also speculation that some sort of last-minute deal could come along... as a failure to do so would put even more pressure on the National Assembly -- especially having wasted a month in April... resulting in a growing stack of agenda items to go through.<br />Kim Min-ji, Arirang News." <br />
