By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

A right-wing civic group has made a public apology for comments one of its members made about McDonald's during a debate on a television show, saying it was "groundless and reckless."

The New Right National Union (NRU) announced an apology Friday, after its secretary general Lim Heon-jo said the hamburgers sold at McDonald's in the United States are made of beef from cattle older than 30 months as well as their intestines on Thursday's edition of ``100-Minute Debate,'' a local television talk show.

It said the remark came out of misunderstanding and doesn't represent the official stance of the group.

``We send our sincerest apologies for confusing people and dealing unintended damage to McDonald's with incorrect comment,'' the NRU said. ``The comment was made by an individual and has nothing to do with the organization.''

The Web site of the NRU was shut down Friday evening, with no particular explanation given to visitors.

McDonald's Korea posted the apology on its home page with a notice that the fast-food chain has been using beef from Australia and New Zealand only in its products since 1995.

The Korean corporation of the U.S.-based giant had requested an official apology from NRU, which the conservative association had given, it said.

McDonald's has recently suffered a series of bad incidents including a cyber attack on its home page earlier this week.

``We were all stunned after watching the show,'' Yeom Hye-ji, the communications manager of the company, said Friday. ``And today, we got thousands of complaint calls from customers at our stores and headquarters throughout the day.''

The company said it is carefully deciding what to do about the consequence.

``We first need to reassure our customers that our beef is safe,'' said John Kim, McDonald's senior director of marketing and communications. ``Right now we are mulling over our next steps with our legal counsel.''

In the online world, Lim's comments have already become the talk of the town _ the clip of him making them has already been posted on Youtube, where it attracted over 100,000 hits in one day, and other major video-sharing Web sites.

The NRU, launched in 2005, called itself the ``New Right'' to draw a distinction from the previous right wing's negative legacy involving past military regimes and political cronyism.

Its affiliate, Text Forum, stirred controversy after releasing an ``alternative'' school history textbook in 2006, with a seriously right-leaning interpretation of the country's modern historical events.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr