The Kurdistan government has demanded an apology from a Korean lawmaker and newspaper over allegations it took bribes from state-run oil developer Korea National Oil Corp. back in 2008, according to officials.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Natural Resources Ministry said it would take legal action against Rep. Chun Soon-ok from the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, and a local daily unless they apologized, the officials said.

The KRG’s ministry sent emails on Monday to Korea’s Energy Minister Yoon Sang-jick and National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa urging them to take swift action against what it called “false and malicious” allegations.

The foreign government was upset after Chun alleged in a local newspaper on March 10 that high-ranking KRG officials, including Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami, seem to have personally used the $31.4 million “signature bonus” that KNOC sent in return for the Bazian Block exploration deal in January 2008.

Chun raised the questions in the course of the investigation into shoddy energy deals pushed under the “energy diplomacy” of former President Lee Myung-bak. She is a member of the special committee for the investigation, which was established in January under the National Assembly.

“It is true that Minister Yoon received the email with several attachments, including a two-page long document on the record of payments made by KNOC in 2008 via HSBC accounts,” Yang Dong-woo, an official from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, told The Korea Herald.

KRG’s oil ministry took the action as a series of articles covering the allegations caused ripple effects both in Korea and Iraq.

The ministry revealed the payment document in its effort to refute the allegations. The entire documents attached in the email are also found on the ministry’s official website.

The key rationale behind Chun’s allegations is related to the bank account. She raised the point that KNOC’s “signature bonus” was sent to a “liaison” HSBC account created in London and so it is not certain who created or owned it.

The payment document, however, shows that the HSBC account is one of the ministry’s official bank accounts opened under the name of KRG in 2007, and not a “liaison” account.

Further, the KNOC used the HBSC account for other payments besides the signature bonus throughout 2008.

The bottom of the documents also include a list of other international oil companies, such as Sterling Energy, Heritage Energy and Gulf Keystone, which used the same accounts. KRG added it closed the HSBC account in 2013.

“We repeatedly told Rep. Chun and media organizations that all the payments in question were legal,” a high-ranking KNOC official told The Korea Herald under the condition of anonymity.

“It is not rare for governments in the Middle East to use bank accounts created overseas, due to their less developed banking systems.”

He pointed out that more concrete evidence is necessary to prove the allegations involving foreign government officials.

“KNOC employees and executives are most concerned that the conflict with the KRG will affect our oil exploration and production business in the region.”

Since 2007, KNOC has invested around 1 trillion won in exploring five oil blocks in KRG. It discovered oil reserves in two blocks ― Hawler and Sangaw South ― out of five exploration projects. The Korean oil company started oil production in the Hawler block last April, and estimated the reserves to be 258 million barrels.

“It is critical to build cooperative relations with the KRG for the success of the two oil projects,” the official added.

Korea’s Energy Ministry said it is making all-out efforts to communicate with all parties involved in the matter to prepare for the reply.

It is not certain that Chun read the email sent by KRG’s oil ministry as she could not be reached on Wednesday. She is on a business trip to Vitamin and the Philippines throughout the week.

By Seo Jee-yeon (jyseo@heraldcorp.com)