A group of ruling party lawmakers on Monday asked to see the archives of a 2007 inter-Korean summit meeting to verify whether then President Roh Moo-hyun tried to nullify the de facto inter-Korean maritime border in a meeting with his North Korean counterpart.

The ruling Saenuri Party has claimed the late Roh made the remarks about the Northern Limit Line during a private meeting with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and has demanded an explanation from main opposition presidential candidate Moon Jae-in, who served as Roh's chief of staff at the time.

With the presidential election less than two months away, Saenuri has used the allegations as fodder for an all-out attack against Moon. The party claims the remarks amounted to a denial of the country's territorial sovereignty as North Korea does not recognize the border and demands the line be drawn farther south.

The NLL has seen many armed clashes in recent years, with the latest incident involving the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island by North Korean artillery in November 2010. The attack left four people dead including two civilians.

As part of the ongoing offensive, five lawmakers belonging to a Saenuri committee tasked with investigating the allegations visited the presidential archives department of the state-run National Archives of Korea in Seongnam, south of Seoul.

In a meeting with chief of presidential archives Park Jun-ha, the committee's chair, Rep. Song Kwang-ho, asked for his cooperation in viewing the archives.

Park, however, reiterated the government's stance that it cannot disclose the records under existing laws.

"I cannot verify whether the archives are being kept here," he said, noting that the minutes of the inter-Korean summit are protected under the law.

By law, such materials can be made public only with two-thirds approval from the 300-member National Assembly, when a high court requests their use as evidence in a case, or when an archives employee receives special permission to access the records for administrative purposes. (Yonhap News)