President Moon presides over emergency meeting on 'Icheon fire'... "Need to review fire safety measures"

Trump's Statement 'Korea Agreed to Pay Large Defense Costs' Rejected by Blue House: "Nothing Has Been Agreed Yet"

President Moon Jae-in [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Son Sunhee] President Moon Jae-in chaired an emergency countermeasure meeting at the National Crisis Management Center on the 30th regarding the large-scale casualty fire accident at a logistics warehouse in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, White House spokesperson Kang Min-seok revealed.

Spokesperson Kang held a briefing at the Chuncheon Press Center in the afternoon and stated, "In the meeting held from 9 a.m. today, President Moon emphasized the need to investigate why the fire safety measures, which have been strengthened under our government, did not function at the site." Along with this, President Moon instructed, "Thorough fire safety measures must be devised and implemented to ensure that such an incident never recurs."

Furthermore, he urged his aides, saying, "Funeral procedures should be carried out according to the wishes of the victims' families," and "Please ensure that compensation and restitution issues are properly handled." The meeting was attended by aides including Chief of Staff to the President Noh Young-min and National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong, similar to the emergency countermeasure meeting held the previous day.

Meanwhile, regarding U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks about the South Korea-U.S. defense cost-sharing negotiations, stating "They (South Korea) agreed to pay a lot of money," implying that our government agreed to significantly increase the contribution, a senior Blue House official dismissed this by saying, "Negotiations are ongoing, and nothing has been agreed upon yet." He emphasized, "The basic principle of negotiations is that nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.