S Korea okays deal with North amid conservative opposition

Seoul: South Korea's liberal president on Tuesday formally approved his recent reconciliation deals with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, triggering immediate backlash from conservatives who called him "self-righteous" and "subservient" to the North.

President Moon Jae-in's move is largely seen as an effort to show he's determined to carry out the deals despite growing skepticism about whether his engagement policy could eventually lead to North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

-Moon "ratified" the deals on Tuesday afternoon, hours after his Cabinet approved them during a regular meeting, his office said in a statement. The back-to-back endorsements came with no prior parliamentary endorsement. In South Korea, a president is allowed by law to ratify some agreements with North Korea without consents from lawmakers. At the start of the Cabinet meeting, Moon said in televised remarks that the ratification would help further improve ties with North Korea and accelerate global efforts to achieve the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." The main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party criticized Moon's action, saying the deals would only undermine national security and waste taxpayers' money. "We deplore the fact that the Moon Jae-in government is weighted toward its subservient North Korea policy and is consistently being self-righteous and lacking communication" with parliament, said party spokesman Yoon Young-seok. Moon, who took office last year, has said that greater reconciliation with North Korea would help resolve the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions.

Moon has met with Kim three times this year, and he shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington to help arrange a series of high-level talks between the countries, including a June summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in Singapore.