hankyoreh

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

There are concerns that the sudden decision by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to disclose the transcript from the 2007 inter-Korean summit goes beyond a violation of the law and may have a severely negative influence both on national security and on the future of record-keeping culture. Many observers are arguing that the people who released the transcript should be held strictly responsible for their actions.

The NIS gave a number of reasons to justify its release of the transcript. According to the NIS, both the ruling and opposition parties had demanded it; releasing the transcript would not have a big influence on national security since it was six years old; public debate about the contents of the transcript was becoming more divisive; and the transcript had no value as a classified document because substantial portions had already been leaked to the press.

However, this explanation has been criticized as being arbitrary. The NIS has also been criticized for overstepping its authority. “No matter in what fashion the National Intelligence Service may have got its hands on the summit transcript, the transcript was recorded at the Blue House, and as such it must be viewed as a presidential record,” said Hanshin University professor Lee Yeong-nam. “The NIS does not have any legal authority to decide whether or not to disclose a presidential record.”

Ahn Byeong-u is a professor at Hanshin University and served as the first director of the National Archives of Korea. “Whatever politicians may demand, classified materials should be kept classified,” Ahn said.

Ahn rebutted the NIS arguments point by point. “The National Intelligence Service claimed that the transcript has no value as a classified document and that national conflict has gotten worse, but these were both caused by the NIS leaking portions of the transcript little by little. While the summit may have taken place six years ago, Korea remains divided between North and South, and we will have to negotiate with Pyongyang in the future. It is also incorrect to say that the disclosure will not have any effect.”

There are also worries about how the fallout from the revelation of exactly what was said during the inter-Korean summit will affect inter-Korean relations in the future, as well as diplomatic relations with other countries. Not only is the move inconsistent with global diplomatic protocol and the building of trust between North and South that South Korean President Park Geun-hye has advocated, but it could also provoke North Korea into making retaliatory disclosures.

“A summit is a process in which leaders sit down face to face, share their true feelings, and try to persuade each other,” said Moon Chung-in, a professor at Yonsei University. “If the details of such meetings are disclosed, it could set a bad precedent and even make it impossible for South Korea to engage in diplomacy, in particular the kind of extremely sensitive diplomacy of which the inter-Korean summit meeting is a good example.”

As the leaders try to win each other over in order to resolve some problem, it is only natural that sometimes they will touch upon taboo topics, Moon explained. If this kind of disclosure becomes commonplace, few national leaders will be willing to engage in a frank discussion with the South Korean president.

The disclosure of the transcript is concerning because of the frequent flare-ups in relations between North and South. “When Seoul releases the transcript of a summit, it is very likely that Pyongyang will issue a strong complaint, calling it an insult to the supreme majesty of their former leader, and retaliate in some way,” said Kim Jong-dae, editor of the journal Defense 21+.

North Korea has been selective in how it has responded to the disclosure of statements by its former leader Kim Jong-il. The transcript of the two summits between North Korea and Japan, which took place in 2002 and 2004 between Kim and then-Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, was made public in a documentary that ran on Japanese public TV channel NHK on Nov. 2009. At the time, NHK provided a detailed report of Kim’s remarks about why Pyongyang wanted nuclear weapons, but North Korea made no particular response, perhaps because it decided that the broadcast was not malicious.

But in June 2012, when the conservative establishment and the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) accused the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) of being North Korean sympathizers, Pyongyang issued a warning. “If we were to disclose all of the things that (Saenuri leaders) Park Geun-hye, Chung Mong-joon, and Kim Moon-soo had told us, South Koreans would be stunned,” the North said. The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) specifically targeted Park, claiming that she made quite a few pro-North Korean statements during her visit to Pyongyang in May 2002, when she had a meeting with Kim Jong-il and toured the city.

If the North seizes this opportunity to make this kind of retaliation, it is possible that inter-Korean relations could become even chillier, as the two sides enter a weird kind of truth-and-dare with one explosive revelation being made after another.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]