The ruling Saenuri Party and conservative civic groups stepped up pressure on the opposition Democratic United Party over allegations that late former President Roh Moo-hyun disavowed the de facto sea border between the two Koreas and ordered the destruction of sensitive government documents including those with the issue.

The Saenuri Party demanded DUP candidate Moon Jae-in, who served as Roh’s chief of staff, come clean over the suspicions. A group of conservative activists embarked on a signature collecting campaign to disclose the classified records on Roh’s dialogue with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il during a 2007 summit in Pyongyang.

The dispute over the Northern Limit Line has emerged as the hottest issue in the lead up to the Dec. 19 presidential election.

Saenuri said there is a need to check if Roh verbally compromised the legitimacy of the NLL during the inter-Korean summit, which could have fueled tensions along the sea demarcation line between the two Koreans in the past few years.

Citing a media reports, Kim Moo-sung, the head of Saenuri’s election strategy office, claimed Roh ordered the destruction of files and an inventory of records he was obliged to turn over to the next administration at a meeting of his senior aides. Such a move could be interpreted as an attempt to withhold damaging information about activities carried out during his administration.

“The public wants to know what Roh wanted to hide and since DUP’s presidential candidate Moon Jae-in was present at the meeting, as chief of staff, there is a pressing need to discover the truth,” Kim said.

The former lawmaker stressed that the issue is important because Moon needs to clarify his views directly related to sovereignty and national security.

The conservative party also called on the opposition to accept a special parliamentary inquiry on this matter and to convene a meeting of the assembly’s national defense, unification and foreign affairs committees to discuss what actions must be taken to get to the truth.

Saenuri has persistently called on the DUP to allow the scrutiny of the files that are locked up, but the opposition has refused.

By law, materials classified as “sealed” by a president can only be opened with two-thirds approval of all lawmakers or when a warrant is issued by a high court judge.

The DUP has countered that there are no files on the purported secret dialogue between Roh and Kim and said such accusations are nothing more than mud-slinging.

“If what Saenuri is saying is true, changing the NLL would have been mentioned in the joint communique following the 2007 summit, but it was not,” said Lee Jong-seok, a member of Moon’s election team and former unification minister during the Roh administration.

(From news reports)