Roh demands details on North Korea payoff scandal

Roh demands details on North Korea payoff scandal

Lim Chang-Won, Agence France-Presse, Seoul

South Korea's president-elect Roh Moo-Hyun on Monday urged the government to come clean about allegations that North Korea received a bribe in return for staging a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.

But Roh insisted that prosecutors should not expand an inquiry into the issue that could affect ties with North Korea and that the matter should instead be referred to the National Assembly, his spokesman Lee Nak-Yon said.

"Our position is the truth must be revealed," the spokesman said in response to a demand by South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) that prosecutors question the president and his aides.

South Korean prosecutors were meeting on Monday to expand an investigation into the payoff scandal following stunning revelations by government auditors on Friday that the Hyundai group had funneled some US$200million to the North.

Prosecutors are under pressure to expand the investigation beyond the business group, considered merely a front, to the scheme's alleged masterminds in the presidential Blue House, including President Kim Dae-Jung himself.

Roh's aides have called for a "political" rather than a criminal settlement to the case but want the outgoing administration to give a more detailed explanation about the payoff scandal.

President Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il met in Pyongyang in June, 2000, and agreed to launch a series of reconciliation events that helped Kim Dae-Jung win a Nobel Peace Prize.

But the president faced flak last week following the report by government auditors concerning the secret payment of US$200million to the North.

The opposition party claimed Hyundai acted as a conduit for the bribe to the impoverished North at the request of President Kim's administration, long accused by critics of offering too much to Pyongyang for too little in return.

The GNP, which controls the National Assembly, rejected calls for a political solution to the scandal and vowed to push for a parliamentary probe under which President Kim will be pressed to testify.

"The only way to cleanse oneself of the sin of deceiving the people is to confess frankly and apologize sincerely," GNP's acting chairman Park Hee-Tae said.

North Korea, via its official media, joined in the controversy on Sunday with a threat to scrap humanitarian and economic projects with South Korea if its deals with Hyundai were called into question.

The Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee in Pyongyang accused the GNP of a "sinister" bid to fault cooperation between Pyongyang and Hyundai.

The two sides "cannot but be exposed only to confrontation, conflict and war" if "even normal economic cooperation and deals between compatriots should be called into question and checked," the committee's spokesman said.

The two Koreas recently agreed to start overland tours from South Korea to the North's scenic Mount Kumgang via a road link up the eastern side of the peninsula.

Chung and some 100 Hyundai personnel had planned to visit Kumgang this week. But South Korean prosecutors have banned Chung and more than a dozen other executives from leaving the country as prosecutors weigh their options on the investigations.