Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Promises the Minister of Unification to Pass the Resolution on the Abductees

Nov. 5, 2011

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (picture), Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, handed a document to Ryu Woo-ik, Minister of Unification, visiting the US Congress. It was a copy of House Resolution 376 calling for the repatriation of POW/MIAs and abductees from the Korean War, proposed to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

According to Minister Ryu, the Chairman said, “This issue is very important and I will do my best with the proceedings. If you need anything in the future, please let me know any time.”

In a meeting with Washington correspondents, Minister Ryu said, “Before I brought up the issue of the resolution on the abductees, Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was pleased to give me a copy of the resolution. I felt like she was personally invested in the issue of abductees and defectors, maybe because she herself was a refugee from Cuba.”

Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was born in the capital of Cuba, Havana, but left her country because of the Communist revolution when she was 7 years old. She was the first Hispanic woman to become a member of the House of Representative.

A source from the House of Representative said that 34 people, including 6 members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, became co-sponsors, and by next week a prerequisite of introducing a bill, which is to have 25 co-sponsors, including 10 members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, will be fulfilled.

Another source said that, because Chairman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen and others are passionate about the resolution on the abductees, it is likely to pass the US House of Representatives this year.

At the end of July, Representative Charles Rangel, a Korean War veteran, proposed a resolution urging related countries to help the POWs detained in North Korea to reunite with their families and make more efforts to bring the abducted civilians back.

The resolution also demands the US government restart efforts to find the remains of US soldiers in North Korea, which were stopped in 2005.