When the government announced that the fire aboard the HMM vessel Namu in the Strait of Hormuz was caused by a strike from an unidentified aerial object, the People Power Party launched a fierce attack, accusing the administration of concealing the truth and practicing appeasement toward Iran despite clear indications of Iranian responsibility. Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the People Power Party, told the party’s Supreme Council meeting on the 11th that the single word “Iran” — which should have appeared in yesterday’s government report — was conspicuously absent. “It’s as if the attacker (Iran) has confessed, yet the victim (our government) insists it wasn’t them,” he said.
Jang pressed the point further: “They reviewed CCTV footage and still call it an unidentified aerial object — are they suggesting an alien UFO attacked us? This administration even transferred money to Iran, and that money might have come back to us in the form of drones that struck our ship.”
He also criticized President Lee Jae-myung, saying the president posted only about real estate on social media around midnight while sailors’ safety was at risk and has remained silent on security matters.
Song Eon-seok, the party’s floor leader, also blasted the government for a slow and downplayed response. “It took almost a week to officially confirm the strike, and the wording was vague,” Song said, accusing officials of focusing more on covering the president’s failures than on protecting the ships and crews exposed in the Strait of Hormuz.
Kim Jae-won intensified the rhetoric by citing a past presidential remark promising severe consequences for anyone who harms Koreans overseas. “That promise still rings in our ears,” he said, adding that the current silence makes the president look like an armchair warrior.
Park Chung-kwon, the party’s chief floor spokesman, warned in a statement that the failure to promptly verify the launch site even with U.S. intelligence cooperation is an international embarrassment, and that concealing the truth for political gain would amount to a national disgrace.
