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Moon demands Lee to stay away from elections
By Jun Ji-hye
The Moon Jae-in camp urged President Lee Myung-bak to stop interfering in the election, calling Lee’s recent trip to the maritime boundary in the West Sea as a politically-motivated act.
“It is a clear intervention in the presidential election under the guise of national security,” Rep. Jin Sung-joon of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) said in a briefing, Friday.
Jin said President Lee tried to side with the Saenuri Party to help its presidential candidate Park Geun-hye.
“If he was worried about national security, he should have visited the military demarcation line between the two Koreas where the border crossing incident of a North Korean solider occurred,” he said.
The DUP was suspicious of Lee’s motives for visiting the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at a time when the ruling party strove to politicize the issue.
On Thursday, President Lee made an unannounced visit to the Yeonpyeong Island near the NLL amid a controversy on the late former President Roh Moo-hyun’s remarks on the maritime border.
Roh was quoted by the ruling party as saying during a summit with the North in October 2007 that South Korea won’t insist on NLL, a maritime demarcation line in the West Sea. Roh said the border was drawn unilaterally by the United States to fulfill its interest.
Meanwhile, the ruling Saenuri Party built up pressure on Moon and independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo to clarify their position on the NLL.
Park Geun-hye, the ruling Party’s presidential candidate, said, “The NLL is where our soldiers have given their lives to defend us. Nobody can randomly change it.”
Rep. Kim Moo-sung, the chief strategist of the Park camp, also reiterated that the late former President Roh ordered his office to destroy transcripts of the 2007 summit with former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, to attack the DUP candidate.
“If the allegation is confirmed to be true, Roh made an irreversible mistake. I urge the National Assembly to launch an investigation to find if the allegation is true,” Kim said.
Rep. Lee Hahn-koo, floor leader of the Saenuri Party, joined the attack, accusing Rep. Park Jie-won of the DUP of a slip of tongue.
Earlier Park said, “Strictly speaking, the NLL is not the borderline, because it was drawn unilaterally by the United Nation’s Command in 1953.”
Lee claimed “Park’s remarks are the DUP’s stance on the maritime border. I urge Moon to clarify if he agrees with Park on the NLL.”
Lee then switched targets to independent Ahn.
“It is a serious concern that Ahn has yet to clarify his position on the NLL. I urge him to make his position clear as soon as possible. As a presidential candidate, he is not supposed to stay silent on this crucial issue,” he said.