The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Wednesday it will launch a task force to reform itself amid growing calls for overhauling South Korea's top spy agency at the center of accusations of meddling in domestic politics.
The envisioned reform will be carried out in a way that strengthens the agency's original duties, such as anti-espionage and counter-terrorism activities, while ensuring that there will be no problems of political intervention, the NIS said in a statement.
"Since the inauguration of Director Nam Jae-joon, the NIS has carried out strong voluntarily reform measures," the statement said. "In order to be reborn as a new NIS, we decided to form a task force within the agency to launch a second round of reform."
It said it will hear views from experts and hold public hearings to come up with reform measures.
The move is in line with President Park Geun-hye's remarks that the agency should take charge of its own reform, though the main opposition Democratic Party criticized the instruction, saying it makes no sense to let the target of reform overhaul itself.
The intelligence agency has been a target of criticism following revelations that it mobilized some of its agents to write comments and postings on the Internet in an attempt to influence public opinion ahead of December's presidential election.
Criticism rose further after the agency made a transcript public that contained remarks made by former late President Roh Moo-hyun during his 2007 summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The opposition claimed the disclosure was an attempt to divert public attention away from the election meddling scandal.
In Wednesday's statement, the NIS insisted that the transcript's disclosure was an inevitable choice for national security at a time when controversy grew over what was discussed during the 2007 summit about the country's Yellow Sea border with North Korea, known as the Northern Limit Line or NLL. (Yonhap News)
