Did Roh offer to give up NLL or not?
The National Intelligence Service’s disclosure of minutes of the 2007 summit between the late former President Roh Moo-hyun and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has touched off a political firestorm. At right is one of the copies that were given to the members of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, while the left photo shows the two leaders raising their glasses in a toast during their Pyongyang meeting.
National Intelligence Service's disclosure of 2007 summit records adds fuel to controversy
By Kim Tae-gyu
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) Monday disclosed excerpts of transcripts of the 2007 inter-Korean summit to lawmakers, Monday, in which the late former President Roh Moo-hyun acknowledged the need to change the western maritime border with North Korea.
But controversy still continues on whether Roh denied the legitimacy of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) ― the de facto West Sea border ― during talks with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il because full text of their dialogue was not disclosed.
“I agree with you (Kim). The NLL should be overhauled,” Roh said according to the eight-page excerpts.
“But those who are not well aware of it tend to respond to the NLL issue in a very sensitive and boisterous manner. What we want to suggest is to draw a peace and economics map to replace the security and military one.”
Pyongyang argues that the maritime demarcation line should be redrawn farther south than the NLL since the latter was unilaterally fixed by the United Nations Command at the end of the Korean War (1950-53).
Lawmakers of the ruling Saenuri Party will decide later whether to make the full transcripts public, while those from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) refused to accept them.
The Saenuri Party claimed that Roh undermined the legitimacy of the country’s sea boundary in his meeting with Kim.
In response, the DP countered that the excerpts do not show the precise intentions of Roh. Instead, it took issue with the NIS, which the party said unlawfully declassified and disclosed the transcripts.
Its arguments are in line with a demand made last week that the prosecution should look into Saenuri Party lawmakers and NIS chief Nam Jae-joon, claiming that they read the transcripts in violation of relevant laws. An investigation was started Monday.
The DP also contends that the unexpected maneuver was an attempt by the NIS to obviate suspicions that it intervened in last year’s presidential election.
Former NIS head Won Sei-hoon was indicted this month on charges of illegally ordering NIS agents to post online comments to discredit President Park Geun-hye’s archrival Moon Jae-in, the DP candidate, during the election.
The NIS announcement on the transcripts came just after President Park asked the Assembly to get to the bottom of the suspicions while negating any link to the spy agency’s alleged attempt to affect the poll.
“I don’t know at all why such an incident happened or why they did that. In the presidential election the NIS gave no help, and I received no help from it,” Park was quoted as saying by her senior press secretary Lee Jung-hyun. “If there were such problems, however, the suspicions raised by the governing and opposition parties should be addressed … But the National Assembly, not the President, should take charge of the procedure.”
Meanwhile, the NIS defended its disclosure of the transcripts as the right thing to do.
“Although we let lawmakers read the excerpts, allegations continue to rise that Roh’s remarks were manipulated or distorted. And governing and opposition parties alike demanded the disclosure of the transcript,” the NIS said in a statement.
“We do not think that the details of the summit six years ago will have a serious negative effect on our national security. Rather, we worry that the bickering over the content will cause a split in public opinion, thus negatively affecting security. In this climate, we gave the transcripts to lawmakers who have asked for them it several times.”