The state intelligence agency opened Pandora’s box when it unexpectedly disclosed Monday the controversial transcript of the 2007 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
The abrupt disclosure added a new twist to the already convoluted dispute over the remarks that Roh made during the summit regarding the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the West Sea.
The National Intelligence Service made public the summit minutes through lawmakers on the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee. DP lawmakers refused to receive the document, vehemently denouncing the agency for breaking the law in unilaterally unveiling it.
Saenuri legislators welcomed the spy agency’s bold move, saying that they hoped it could put an end to the long drawn-out dispute. Yet they held off making public the record of about 100 pages in its entirety; they instead disclosed an eight-page excerpt.
The script confirms the allegations raised by Saenuri lawmakers that Roh made many remarks on the NLL and other sensitive issues that undoubtedly harmed national interests.
It shows how Roh tried to effectively nullify the disputed maritime borderline by creating what he called a West Sea Peace and Cooperation Zone, where the two countries would cooperate in fishing and other projects across the border.
He was also quoted as telling the North Korean leader boastfully that his government scrapped Operational Plan 5029, a Washington-crafted plan to deal with contingencies in the North, such as internal unrest or a regime collapse.
The excerpts show that Roh criticized Washington’s sanctions in 2005 against Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank that managed slush funds for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il amounting to $25 million.
In all, the image of Roh depicted in the transcript is that of a cheerleader for North Korea. He sat for the summit not as a South Korean president keen to defend national interests but as a junior partner for the North Korean leader.
Yet Roh’s former aides asserted that the NIS document did not coincide in some parts with the version kept in the Presidential Repository. The excerpt, they say, is misleading as it presents Roh’s remarks out of context.
This makes it necessary to disclose the presidential archives, which include summit minutes and other materials prepared before and after the meeting. The opposition party is also willing to make public the archives as they would help understand Roh’s intentions more clearly.
Yet the Democratic Party says the disclosure of the presidential archives should come only after a parliamentary investigation has been conducted on the allegations that the NIS meddled in the December presidential election.
The party is in fact so upset by the spy agency’s unilateral act that it plans to organize large-scale outdoor rallies to denounce it and the government. Yet it should heed the fact that polls show a majority of the public is in support of disclosing the document.
True, the spy agency’s move could cause many problems. For instance, it could make it difficult to hold future inter-Korean summits. Yet the document disclosure was inevitable, given the unending political conflict that surrounded it.
Now the two parties need to find ways to de-escalate their confrontation. They should cool down and work together to help the nation navigate the serious economic challenges that lie ahead.
