The Ministry of National Defense’s decision to withhold the fact that the military information sharing agreement with Japan was initiated in April is further fueling the controversy over the South Korean government’s handing of the issue.

On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry revealed that a provisional version of the General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan was initiated by the deputy chief of the international policy bureau Brig. Gen. Shin Kyung-soo and Japanese foreign ministry’s Northeast Asia bureau chief Keiichi Ono on April 23.

The agreement was initiated again on May 1 after some errors were corrected.

The Ministry of National Defense, however, played down the significance of initialing the agreement.

“An agreement is initialed to show that the wording has been given a preliminary review,” a ministry official said.

“Once this is done, the documents are reviewed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for any diplomatic problems, and then it is reviewed by the Ministry of Government Legislation. (Initiating) holds no legal meaning, and can be viewed as being a confirmation that the initiated agreement is the final version drawn up at the working level.”

The government has been under fire from both ruling and opposition parties for handing the issue hastily, and has been accused of misleading the public and the political parties by keeping related procedures secret.

Due to the historical enmity between Korea and Japan, the plans for the General Security of Military Information Agreement has been subjected to strong criticism from politicians and the public since the plans were first revealed in May.

Although the ministry had planned to sign the pact at the end of May, the process was postponed following criticism from political circles.

However, it was revealed that Seoul and Tokyo had agreed on signing the agreement on June 29 and that the agreement was approved by the Cabinet on June 26, only one month since the Defense Ministry announced that related plans will be carried out with more care.

“The fact that the process was not carried out properly is a very regrettable development,” former Saenuri Party emergency committee chairwoman Park Geun-hye told reporters on Monday.

“The public needs to sympathize (with signing the agreement), and the process should be carried out with transparency.”

Park, who is thought to have been behind the ruling party’s decision to pressure the government over the issue, added that the issue will be discussed by the relevant committees of the National Assembly.

Although the two countries had planned on signing the agreement on June 29, Seoul delayed the schedule at the last minute, on request of the political parties.

Since then both the ruling and opposition parties have vehemently criticized the government claiming that they had been left in the dark.

The government, however, claimed that as the National Assembly had not opened at the time, the issue was explained by Deputy Minister of Defense Lim Kwan-bin to the policy chiefs of the parties on June 21.

Both the Saenuri and the Democratic United Party have rebuffed the claims, saying that they were not briefed on the issue.

According to the DUP, Lim declined to answer a question regarding the timeframe the government has set for signing the agreement, and said only that he will report back to the defense minister when party policy chief Lee Yong-sub said that the issue must be discussed by the National Assembly.

The Saenuri Party has also responded in kind to the government’s claims that political parties were briefed on the issue.

“Chief of policy Lim Kwan-bin was making a courtesy call, it was not an occasion for reporting the progress on signing a Korea-Japan military agreement,” a Saenuri Party official said. The official added that the party’s policy chief cut Lim off when the subject was brought up telling the deputy defense minister to report to the appropriate National Assembly committee. 



By Choi He-suk


(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)