The ruling Saenuri Party’s Rep. Chung Moon-hun was questioned on Tuesday over his involvement in the alleged leak of the 2007 inter-Korean summit transcript.

Chung was the first lawmaker to claim that late President Roh Moo-hyun conceded the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, to deceased North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Chung’s claim, first made on Oct. 8, has led to the launch of three separate investigations by the prosecution.

Chung will be questioned on whether he had seen the transcript while he was serving as a unification secretary to former President Lee Myung-bak between 2009 and 2011. At the time, the transcript was classified a grade-one secret and under the National Intelligence Service’s keeping.

Ahead of the questioning, Chung focused on his claim rather than the case at hand.

“Kim Jong-il requested the NLL to be given up several times in return for (establishing) a cooperative zone in the West Sea, and President Roh responded a number of times,” Chung said.

Chung was also accused by the main opposition Democratic Party of defamation and spreading false information over the same issue. In February, the prosecution declared that the charges could not be applied to Chung, saying that his claims could not be seen as false.

The prosecution’s report on the investigation into irregularities in the holding of the document released on Nov. 15 shows that it was Kim Jong-il who used the term “giving up” in reference to the NLL.

“As the West Sea issue stands as complicated as it is, the two sides should make a decision and give up all the old lines,” Kim Jong-il is quoted as saying in the transcript obtained by the prosecution.

Kim Jong-il is also quoted as saying that the concerned area off the west coast of the peninsula should be declared a “peace zone.”

Chung is the second Saenuri Party lawmaker to be questioned in connection to the case after Rep. Kim Moo-sung.

The DP began to suspect Kim Moo-sung of having had access to the transcript after he repeated Chung’s claims in words that closely resembled excerpts from the transcript. During the Nov. 13 questioning, Kim Moo-sung denied the allegations, saying that he acquired the information from circulating intelligence reports.

In addition to Kim Moo-sung and Chung, Rep. Suh Sang-kee is to be summoned within the week, while Korean Ambassador to China Kwon Young-se has been questioned in writing in connection with the case.

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