Hong Joon-pyo: "Is TK New Airport Populism? Nonsense from Stupid and Ignorant People"

"Urban Airport Noise Damage Compensation Reaches 500 Billion Won"

Hong Jun-pyo, the mayor of Daegu, raised his voice about the Daegu-Gyeongbuk (TK) new airport, saying, "(It is not) (populism for the general election)" and "(Populism is) something said by stupid and ignorant kids."

On the 10th, Mayor Hong said on KBS's 'Choi Kyung-young's Strong Current Affairs,' "Those stupid and ignorant kids just cover it up with nice words like that, but it's not that kind of airport. It's not like making a new Gadeokdo airport while keeping Gimhae Airport like in Busan."

Recently, Mayor Hong also had a heated exchange on his social media with former People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Hee-sook over the TK new airport issue. He holds the position that the TK new airport is inevitable due to noise from the urban airport.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

He said, "There are many misunderstandings among the public about the TK new airport, but it is not airport populism or anything like that. The government has been paying more than 20 billion won annually to compensate residents of Daegu City for noise damage caused by the urban airport. That amount has now exceeded 500 billion won."

He added, "The residents suffer greatly from the noise of the urban airport, especially from fighter jet noise. So, relocation is unavoidable. When trying to relocate the new airport to Gumi through a donation and concession method, no one trusts Daegu City to build the airport. Therefore, a clause was included in the special law stating that the state will support if funds are insufficient."

His evaluation of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's first year is positive. He said, "From my perspective, it is the normalization of abnormality," adding, "The most representative examples are inter-Korean relations and labor-management relations. During the Moon Jae-in administration, inter-Korean relations were subordinated to the North."

In response to the host's remark that "It seems we are on the front line of the confrontation between the US-Japan-South Korea and North Korea-China-Russia," Mayor Hong replied, "You are mistaken. We were deceived by disguised peace and false peace for five years," and "The North threatened us with overwhelming nuclear weapons, and it was a peace of submission."

Regarding the issue of Kim Jae-won and Tae Young-ho's positions as Supreme Council members, he said, "It is right to just cut them off," adding, "There is no need to create a lame Supreme Council meeting by awkwardly suspending their party rights. It is better to hold a by-election through the National Committee to bring in influential people."

He said, "They talk about voluntary resignation, but unlike the Democratic Party, our party does not do that well," and "If the Democratic Party causes any harm to the party, they voluntarily resign. They resign and later go through the procedure to rejoin, but our party members never leave on their own feet." Tae is expected to voluntarily resign from the Supreme Council position on this day.

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