By Kim Young-jin
North Korea threatened Thursday to disclose recordings of a secret meeting with South Korean officials last month after claiming Seoul attempted to pay bribes in exchange for a series of summits.
Seoul officials reacted calmly, however, saying the move was “expected.”
Reported by the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the threat apparently came in response to Seoul’s denial of the claim and added to Pyongyang’s recent barrage of rhetoric against the Lee Myung-bak administration.
It came as efforts to warm ties as a path back to multilateral negotiations have hit an impasse. Seoul wants the North to apologize for two attacks last year before talks, an approach Pyongyang rejects.
“If all (President Lee Myung-bak’s top security advisor Kim Tae-hyo, unification ministry policy chief Kim Chun-sik and National Intelligence Service official Hong Chang-hwa) continue to focus on creating a conspiracy...then we will be forced to disclose the recordings,” an official of the powerful National Defense Commission said, according to the KCNA. The North denies sinking the Cheonan warship in March, and justifies bombarding Yeonpyeong Island in November as self-defense, attacks that killed 50 in total.
Last week, the North blindsided the South by alleging that a secret meeting was held last month in Beijing during which it claimed Seoul officials begged and offered envelops of cash in exchange for summits. That move came after it vowed to never to deal with Lee’s administration.
Officials here admitted a meeting took place but that it was aimed at convincing the North to apologize for sinking the Cheonan and shelling Yeonpyeong.
“Kim Cheon-sik stressed that the secret contact came about following President Lee Myung-bak’s direction and authorization for the sake of holding summit talks,” the official said. “He said that Unification Minister Hyun In-taek oversaw the entire process of the contact and that he was reporting to the presidential office.”
The North Korean official also said that Kim and Hong took out an envelope of cash when the talks faltered but this was rejected.
He also told the KCNA that Seoul officials also proposed that the two sides hold another secret meeting in Malaysia and Cabinet-level talks to lay the groundwork for the summits. The North claimed that South proposed three summits _ the first in late June at the border village of Panmunjeom, the second in September in Pyongyang and the third in Seoul on the sidelines of an international security summit.
