GNP details charges in summit-cash link

The Grand National Party has added some specifics to its charges that the Kim Dae-jung administration "bought" the historic summit meeting between the president and Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, in 2000.

Party officials charged today that Hyundai Asan, a subsidiary of the giant conglomerate that operates tours to North Korea's Mount Geumgang, made the last installment of payments to the North on June 12, 2000. The amount of that transfer, the opposition party said, was $100 million. It said the payment was routed from the Korea Exchange Bank in Seoul to the KEB branch office in Hong Kong, and then onward to a North Korean trading company in Macao.

The party first raised charges in September that a 400-billion-won ($359 million at the time) loan obtained by a Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., another Hyundai subsidiary, in 2000 had been used to bribe the North.

The trading company sent the money to Pyeongyang, the GNP said, the day before the summit began. The Macau firm is owned by the North Korean government, the party said, and is managed by North Korean officials using diplomatic passports. The head of the firm, the GNP asserted, is Pak Ja-byong, who it said is known to handle North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's secret funds.

The Korea Exchange Bank refused to comment on the charges, citing its obligation of client confidentiality.

A GNP official repeated earlier charges that a delay in the arrival of the final installment in Pyeongyang was the reason that the North postponed the beginning of the summit meeting one day.

In 1999, Pyeongyang changed the location of the bank that receives Hyundai's payments for operating the Mount Geumgang tourism project from Austria to Macao.

Separately, the former president of Hyundai Merchant Marine, now in the United States, told the JoongAng Ilbo that he resisted efforts by his firm in 2000 to borrow the 400 billion won that later stirred the controversy. Kim Choong-shik, 57, said in Los Angeles that the absence of his signature on the loan documents, which had been known earlier, spoke for itself. "The absence of my signature but the presence of an official seal is proof that the loan was obtained without my consent," he said.

In Seoul, a government spokesman said it is still determined not to check the bank accounts of Hyundai Merchant Marine despite Mr. Kim's confirmation that he opposed the loan.

The GNP said Mr. Kim's comments substantiated allegations that the Blue House bribed the North for the summit. "The story that the loan was secretly obtained without the knowledge of the company president proves that current Hyundai Group chairman Chung Mong-hun lied when he said the loans were used to resuscitate the Hyundai group," said Nam Kyung-pil, the GNP spokesman.

by Lee Sang-il