President Moon Jae-in's policy planning advisory panel on Wednesday called for a wholesale reform of the country's spy agency long suspected of meddling in politics to support the ruling elites.
The State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee received a policy briefing from the National Intelligence Service, during which it stressed the need to revamp the agency's overall operations, including its management of budgets, personnel and policy divisions.
This image shows National Intelligence Service director-nominee Suh Hoon speaking during a parliamentary hearing at the National Assembly in Seoul. (Yonhap)
"Today, we will strongly call for reform and keep on checking it," Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the ruling Democratic Party, a senior member of the committee's subpanel in charge of security affairs, told reporters.
"There are more than 100 things such as personnel, organizational structure and budgets ... We will check each and every one of them," he added.
The NIS reform was among Moon's key campaign pledges. He vowed to remove the NIS role in gleaning domestic intelligence and reshape the agency into an entity mainly dealing with overseas security intelligence affairs involving North Korea, terrorism and international crimes.
The president has tapped Suh Hoon as the NIS chief just hours after his inauguration on May 10.
During his parliamentary confirmation hearing earlier this week, he pledged try to completely insulate the agency from domestic politics as pledged by Moon. He also vowed to seek to foster bipartisan cooperation through a regular security briefing for parliamentary leaders.
Suh is known for his role in preparing for the landmark inter-Korean summits held in June 2000 and October 2007 -- a reason why Moon's nomination of Suh is seen as a move to enhance cross-border ties frayed amid Pyongyang's relentless provocations. (Yonhap)