Failure by South Korea’s major political parties to reach an agreement on a single sentence could prevent the North Korean human rights bill from passing in the near future, events in Seoul on Friday suggested.

While South Korea’s two main political parties previously declared that they had reached a breakthrough on the bill and that its passage was imminent, they failed to produce a final version of the bill on Friday, citing differences in preferred language.

As result, Chairman of the National Assembly Jeong Eui-hwa said Monday he will gather the leadership of the two parties together on Tuesday, Seoul time, in order to mediate a