Democratic United Party presidential candidate Rep. Moon Jae-in spoke out for the first time on Friday about the allegations that late President Roh Moo-hyun had agreed to abandon the northern limit line.

The main opposition DUP and the Saenuri Party have been arguing over the claim, with the conservative ruling party formally requesting a parliamentary investigation into the issue.

“As a presidential candidate, I will take responsibility (if the allegations are true) and be judged by the public,” Moon said during his visit to a navy base in the West Sea, where he stressed security and his will to keep the NLL as the sea border between the two Koreas.

“However, if it is untrue, Rep. Chung Moon-hun, the Saenuri Party and candidate Park Geun-hye will have to take responsibility.”

For his part, Chung responded saying that his claims are true and that he will put his “political life” including his position in the National Assembly on the line. 

The feud erupted on Oct. 8 when the Saenuri’s Chung claimed that Roh and Kim Jong-il held a one-on-one meeting on Oct. 3, 2007, and that the South Korean leader referred to the 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. According to Chung, related information was found within the records of the summit, and from information conveyed by Pyongyang concerning the alleged meeting.

Chung has since claimed that Roh told the former North Korean leader that he had planned to have all U.S. Forces Korea personnel removed from Seoul and the surrounding regions.

The allegations were immediately disputed by the DUP as well as former Roh administration officials including former Minister of Unification Lee Jae-joung and former National Intelligence Service chief Kim Man-bok. According to Roh administration officials who had accompanied the late president to the meeting, the two leaders did not hold an undisclosed meeting at any time during the summit.

“(The Saenuri Party) seeks clarification of the allegations that the former Democratic Party government seriously damaged the country’s sovereignty and security in order to obtain results for the Sunshine Policy,” Saenuri Party floor spokesman Lee Cheol-woo said, and called for the DUP to accept the request.

As the Saenuri Party stepped up its attack on previous progressive regimes’ approaches to North Korea, the DUP hit back focusing on the legal implications of Chung’s claims.

According to the top security and unification officials of the Roh administration who disputed Chung’s claims, records of summit meetings are class-1 secret, which is only available to the highest-ranking officials whose duties are directly concerned with related matters, and cannot be disclosed to the public.

Chung, who claims to have seen the documents, was a presidential secretary on unification from 2009 to 2010 and was therefore unauthorized to view such material.

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