DP leader presses Park on NIS case

By Jun Ji-hye

Rep. Kim Han-gil, chairman of the Democratic Party, reads a copy of a letter he sent to President Park Geun-hye to urge her to agree on launching a National Assembly investigation into the National Intelligence Service’s alleged meddling in the Dec. 19 presidential election, at a party Supreme Council meeting in the Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap

The opposition leader Monday urged President Park Geun-hye to agree on launching a parliamentary investigation into meddling by the national spy agency in last year’s Dec. 19 presidential election. DP leader presses Park on NIS case

President Park responded positively to the request, saying that the suspicions surrounding the spy agency need to be cleared by the National Assembly.

Rep. Kim Han-gil, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), called on President Park to make a decision before Thursday when she leaves for China for the Seoul-Beijing summit talks.

In a letter delivered by his chief secretary Noh Woong-rae to Huh Tae-yeol, Park’s chief of staff, Kim said: “The National Intelligence Service (NIS)’s intervention in the presidential election is an act of destruction of the nation’s democracy. In this severe situation, however, the ruling Saenuri Party attempts to avoid establishing the National Assembly investigation of the case although it had already agreed with the DP to do so in March.”

It is a rare practice for the leader of the main opposition party to send a letter to a president regarding a pending issue.

The prosecution indicted former NIS head Won Sei-hoon without physical detention on June 14 on charges of illegally ordering NIS agents to post online comments to discredit opposition candidates including the DP’s Moon Jae-in and independent Ahn Cheol-soo during the presidential poll last year.

Kim said the NIS scandal as well as the ruling party that broke an agreement about the parliament investigation angered the public, which made civic groups, university students, religious groups and intellectuals come out onto the streets.

“It is true that the NIS’s illegal intervention damaged the legitimacy of last year’s presidential election. If Park wants to secure her administration’s legitimacy, the only way will be to thoroughly investigate the incident and strictly punish all concerned,” said Kim.

The fourth-term lawmaker stressed that Cheong Wa Dae’s silence will only aggravate the situation.

“If the June extraordinary session of the Assembly ends next week without establishing the parliament investigation into the NIS case, the nation’s democracy will be placed in serious crisis. If Park does not make a decision, we have no choice, but to fight for setting democracy right.”

The DP decided to conduct struggles outside of the parliament against the ruling party and the government.

The party plans to circulate a petition calling for the Assembly investigation into the NIS case to the public beginning at noon Wednesday at Yeouido Station, Seoul, and then expand the movement nationwide.

The opposition party also plans to hold massive rallies this weekend in five cities including Seoul, Busan and Gwangju. It will be the first time for the party to hold such rallies since July 2009 when the 18th Assembly passed a controversial revision of the Media Law.

In response, President Park made it clear that she was never involved in the NIS activities during the presidential election.

“I did not know anything about the NIS case. I was never helped by the agency,” she was quoted as saying by a Cheong Wa Dae official.

The official added that Park agreed on the need for uncovering the truth to the public, but it is not appropriate for the president to intervene in deciding the procedure because it is in the Assembly’s hands.

As for the allegation surrounding late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun who, according to the ruling party, denied the validity of the Northern Limit Line’s (NLL) during the 2007 inter-Korean summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim argued that the Saenuri Party reopened the old issue to water down the NIS controversy.

The NLL is a de facto border in the West Sea drawn by the United Nations Command when the Korean War (1950-53) ended.

The ruling party is calling for an immediate opening the transcripts of two leaders’ dialogue to the public to confirm whether the late liberal president actually made such comments.

Regarding this, Kim said in a letter: “The Roh government never attempted to give up the NLL and the DP has a strong will to defend the line. If the ruling party keeps strategically using the NLL issue to make a false show that the DP wants to hide something, we can agree on disclosing the original transcripts of the summit as well as recording tapes.”