Park Vows to Plow on After Election Defeat

President Park Geun-hye on Monday "humbly accepted" her party's devastating rout in last week's general elections but insisted on completing the projects that lost the Saenuri Party its majority.

"With a sense of mission, I will do my best to complete the three-year plan for the country's economic development and economic reform," she said.

Park was speaking at a meeting of senior presidential secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae.

Always a somewhat oracular speaker, she mentioned no conclusions she may have drawn from the defeat directly, saying only, "The outcome of... the general elections gave me an opportunity to think of the consensus of public opinion."

The election results have split the National Assembly into three blocs, with the 38 members of the new People's Party holding the voting power by which the main parties' initiatives stand or fall.

Meanwhile, Park will pay a state visit to Iran on May 1-3, where she will meet with her Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, according to a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman.

Park will be the first Korean president to set foot in Iran.

Korean companies are keen to do business with the oil-rich country now that it has emerged from international isolation, and that will be the focus of her trip.