Political blame game intensifies in Seoul over Sue Mi Terry row

The recent indictment in the US of Sue Mi Terry, a North Korea expert who formerly worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency, is feeding the political blame game between the ruling bloc and opposition here over which administration is responsible for what is perceived as South Korea's spying blunder.

A South Korean liberal lawmaker who formerly served as the chief of South Korea's National Intelligence Service slammed President Yoon Suk Yeol's office for "creating an internal rift."

In a Facebook post Thursday, Rep. Park Jie-won of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea said the presidential office's possible audit of the spy agency would be "the worst out of the worst that does no good for the national interest," and instead would be "aggravating the problem."

"(Yoon's office) should refrain from creating an internal strife in the NIS that would undermine its intelligence capability," Park noted.

He also urged Seoul to examine the repercussions of the US indictment of Terry and prepare countermeasures, instead of "instigating the confrontation between the former Moon Jae-in administration and the incumbent Yoon administration."

Rep. Park Sun-won of the Democratic Party also said in a press briefing Thursday at the National Assembly that of all the alleged activities Terry was indicted for, 20 were during the Yoon administration, while 12 occurred under the Moon administration and eight took place during the prior Park Geun-hye administration. Park Sun-won was the first deputy director of the NIS under Park Jie-won's leadership.

Park Sun-won said in an interview with KBS on Friday that Terry's activities that allegedly breached US rules "significantly spiked" during the Yoon administration.

Park was responding to a comment by a senior official of the presidential office, who declined to be named Thursday, saying that Seoul may carry out an audit of the spy agency, while laying blame on the Moon administration that "removed experts and let amateurs fill in" in Seoul's spy agency during his five years in office to early 2022.

Terry is facing charges of acting as an unregistered agent for Seoul since at least 2013 in return for bribes, advocating for South Korea's policy positions and disclosing nonpublic US government information to South Korean intelligence officers.