[INTERVIEW] Candidate Yoon says he'll probe Moon if he wins
Published: 09 Feb. 2022, 15:53
![People Power Party's presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol gives an exclusive 90-minute interview to the JoongAng Ilbo in his office on Monday. [KIM SANG-SUN]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2022/02/09/11fbadb1-a93f-44cf-98f3-08b42bfead10.jpg)
People Power Party's presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol gives an exclusive 90-minute interview to the JoongAng Ilbo in his office on Monday. [KIM SANG-SUN]
Yoon, the People Power Party (PPP) candidate, is a former prosecutor-general who spearheaded investigations into former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak for Moon under his “eradicating past evils" campaign. Now he is promising to probe Moon, who handpicked him to do the investigations into his immediate predecessors.
“Of course, there will be an investigation,” Yoon told the JoongAng Ilbo in an exclusive interview Monday.
Yoon said the probe won't be personal, but a legitimate action under the criminal justice system. He criticized the ruling party and the Moon administration for having defended their own investigations of Moon's predecessors, while arguing that any investigation of them by Moon's successor will be a political vendetta.
Yoon, who joined Korea's largest conservative party in July and won its presidential nomination in November, said he had felt deeply uncomfortable in the past when he had to prosecute former presidents produced by the party he is now part of.
“If you think you made a great accomplishment as a prosecutor by indicting former presidents, that means you are a fool,” Yoon said. “Making a legal decision against a former president is painful. When they were imprisoned, Park was a woman and Lee was an aged man. I was deeply worried.”
Yoon also said if he wins, prosecutors will have to reinvestigate the Daejang-dong land development scandal plaguing his rival Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party (DP) candidate.
“At the time, he was the mayor [of Seongnam] with all decision-making powers over the project,” Yoon said.
But he dismissed concerns that he will fill top posts in his government with prosecutors he worked closely with. “Prosecutors without experience in politics won't make good political partners for a president,” he said.
During the interview, Yoon proposed an exclusive meeting with rival Ahn Cheol-soo to unite conservative votes against the ruling party’s Lee.
Yoon said he wants to conclude a deal with the People’s Party’s Ahn quickly and directly, not like previous campaigns where such deals took weeks and led to media leaks of sensitive information.
“Politicians, if they trust each other, can reach a decision even in 10 minutes,” he said. “If we trust each other and if we are going in the same direction of trying to stop the ruling party’s victory, we can conclude the deal in 10 minutes over a cup of coffee. If it requires formal negotiation teams, I won’t do it.”
Throughout the interview, Yoon made clear that he will reverse major policies of Moon if he takes office, particularly those involving real estate, energy and North Korea.
“I will supply homes of high quality and appealing designs and attractive locations to stabilize real estate prices,” Yoon said. He said private construction companies must take the initiative to increase supplies of apartments, not the government and state-owned builders.
“I will ease restrictions on redevelopment and increase the floor area ratio to facilitate continuous supplies from construction companies,” he said.
Moon failed to stabilize real estate prices, Yoon said, because he failed to understand the market. “If the government gives signals to the market that there will be a steady flow of supplies, the people will think home prices will be stabilized, and demand will go down,” he said.
Yoon said he will scrap Moon’s phasing-out of nuclear power generation if he wins. “I will throw it away,” he said. The construction of two nuclear reactors that was stopped after Moon took office will be resumed, he said.
Regarding North Korea, Yoon said international inspections of the North’s nuclear facilities are the first step to a denuclearization negotiation “After the North accepts the inspections and the International Atomic Energy Agency conducts them, the United Nations Security Council will be able to ease economic sanctions,” he said.
Yoon disagreed with the idea that South Korea must develop nuclear arms to counter the North. “It is a very dangerous idea that we should have nuclear arms while letting the North keep its weapons and start a disarmament negotiation,” Yoon said. “Whether the North will actually give up its nuclear arms or not, it is important for us to impose strong economic sanctions in order to show that a nuclear-armed North will eventually face an economic collapse.”
Yoon also said Korea should purchase the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-missile system developed by the United States for additional deployment. Currently, the U.S. Forces Korea operate one Thaad battery in the South.
“We must buy our own Thaad as a self-defense measure,” Yoon said, adding that it will be easier to handle China’s pressure if Korea operates its own. China has objected to Thaad batteries because it believes the United States can look deep into the mainland by using the Thaad system’s 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) range radar.
“It was never made public, but defense experts said Beijing had told Seoul to purchase its own system [rather than letting the U.S. military operate one in the South], when the Thaad issue first emerged in 2016,” Yoon said. “What Beijing worries is disruption of the nuclear power balance between the United States and China.”
BY HYUN IL-HOON, SER MYO-JA [ser,myoja@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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