Rival parties clashed over allegations that late President Roh Moo-hyun denied the legitimacy of the West Sea border between the two Koreas during his summit in Pyongyang.

Top security and unification officials of the Roh administration hit back at the Saenuri Party on Wednesday saying that the claims were groundless.

During the parliamentary inspection on the Ministry of Unification on Oct. 3 Rep., Chung Moon-hun of the ruling Saenuri Party claimed that Roh and Kim Jong-il held a one-on-one meeting on October 3, 2007 and that the South Korean leader referred to the northern limit line, or NLL, as “a line the U.S. drew on its own accord.” Roh also allegedly said the “NLL issue would naturally disappear” if the area of the West Sea was used as a co-fishery. The ruling party has since called for a parliamentary investigation into the allegations.

At a press conference held at the National Assembly, former Minister of Unification Lee Jae-joung, former National Intelligence Service chief Kim Man-bok and former chief presidential security advisor Baek Jong-chun said that the claims made by Rep. Chung Moon-hun of the Saenuri Party were entirely false and that voicing the claims cast doubt on his character.

The officials had accompanied late former President Roh Moo-hyun to the summit, and participated in the official meeting on October 3, 2007.

According to Chung, who served as a presidential secretary on unification from 2009 to 2010, North Korea conveyed the content of the 2007 meeting, and the Unification Ministry and the NIS have records of the conversation. The Unification Ministry, however, has denied the existence of such records.

“There was no one-on-one meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and Chairman Kim Jong-il, and no ‘secret agreement.’ A ‘secret transcript’ of the meeting also does not exist,” the former officials said.

“We will bring Rep. Chung Moon-hun to account for damaging the honor of a former president who has already passed away and for tearing down the authority and value of the summit by twisting the truth.”

The Roh administration officials also categorically disputed Chung’s claims saying that records of the inter-Korean summit are class 1 secret, meaning a secretary would not have access to such information.

The officials said that the issue of the NLL did not come up during the meeting, and that the situation room received no reports of the two deceased leaders holding a separate meeting.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)