Yoon didn't suggest Itaewon disaster was 'manipulated': Presidential office

Lee Do-woon, right, senior presidential secretary for public relations, takes part in a National Assembly’s steering committee meeting in Yeouido, western Seoul, on Monday. [NEWS1]

The presidential office on Monday rejected allegations made by a liberal former parliamentary speaker in his recent memoir which claimed that President Yoon Suk Yeol made remarks indicating that the Itaewon crowd crush of 2022 could have been "manipulated."

Lee Do-woon, senior presidential secretary for public relations, appeared before the National Assembly's steering committee in a hearing on pending issues for presidential officials and rejected such allegations as distortions of the truth when questioned by a Democratic Party (DP) lawmaker.

The issue became a political controversy after former National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo's memoir released last Thursday claimed that Yoon suggested foul play may have been behind the Itaewon disaster of Oct. 29, 2022, which led to 159 deaths.

Lee retorted that Yoon "never said anything like that."

He added that Yoon had "ordered all allegations to be investigated because so many suspicions were raised by the media regarding the Itaewon incident."

In his memoir, Kim wrote that in a private conversation in a breakfast prayer meeting with Yoon on Dec. 5, 2022, he suggested to the president that Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min should be asked to voluntarily step down to take responsibility over the incident and also prevent a deadlock over a budget bill.

Yoon allegedly said he couldn't make such a decision because he had "strong doubts" about the incident, saying he could not "rule out the possibility that it might have been induced and manipulated by certain forces."

Such remarks were in line with far-right YouTubers' conspiracy theories, according to Kim.

Conservative People Power Party (PPP) lawmakers, in turn, accused Kim of using the tragedy to sell books.

The presidential office said in a statement on Thursday regarding Kim's memoir that it is "deplorable for a former National Assembly speaker to arbitrarily distort a conversation he shared with the president at the prayer breakfast and make it public."

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]