The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) urged President Yoon Suk Yeol on Monday to clarify his remarks regarding the deadly 2022 Itaewon crowd crush after a former National Assembly speaker quoted him as suggesting the tragedy may have been manipulated.
In his memoir revealed last week, former Speaker Kim Jin-pyo said he had a one-on-one meeting with Yoon in December 2022, during which he recommended the president fire Interior Minister Lee Sang-min over the disaster that killed 159 people in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood in October of that year.
According to Kim, Yoon responded that he could not make a decision regarding Lee because of the possibility the incident had been plotted and manipulated by “certain forces.”
“Is this a country? Is this the president? Should we leave things as they are?” DP Rep. Seo Young-kyo said during a party Supreme Council meeting. “The president must tell us what he said.”
Seo dismissed the presidential office’s response to Kim’s claims, which accused the former speaker o
f distorting the conversation.
“The president should step forward and tell us whether he made those remarks or not,” she said.
DP Rep. Jang Kyung-tae echoed her remarks, saying the presidential office’s explanation is not needed at a time when “allegations have continually been raised that the president is an avid watcher of far-right YouTube channels.”
“President Yoon should make the clarification himself,” he said.
At a parliamentary steering committee session later in the day, presidential officials were asked to address the claims in the memoir.
Lee Do-woon, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said Yoon “never made such remarks” and instructed officials to investigate all the allegations surrounding the disaster.
Source: Yonhap News Agency