FM nominee Chung rejects allegations of push to help build nuke power plant in N. Korea

Foreign Minister nominee Chung Eui-yong (Yonhap)

Foreign Minister nominee Chung Eui-yong on Tuesday rejected allegations that the Moon Jae-in administration had pushed to help build a nuclear power plant in North Korea, stressing the government has never discussed the idea with Pyongyang.

During a press availability, Chung also said the conditions for the construction of such a plant in the North were "impossible," given that the idea can be reviewed only after the conclusion of denuclearization negotiations with the North, the lifting of international sanctions and Pyongyang's return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, among others.

"Under current circumstances, no country can provide a nuclear power plant to the North. We also have not reviewed the issue internally, particularly at the level of the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae and the National Security Office," Chung, credited with playing a central role in advancing Moon's engagement with the North, told reporters.

"In the process of talks with the North, the issue of a nuclear power plant had never been brought up," he added.

Chung's remarks came after the main opposition People Power Party stepped up such allegations, with its leader Kim Chong-in claiming that the alleged nuclear plant plan, if true, would amount to an "act of benefiting the enemy."

The nominee, who played a key role in inter-Korean talks as national security adviser, also said that the South handed over to the North a memory stick to present a rough inter-Korean economic cooperation initiative when Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held their first summit in April 2018,

But there was no mention of a nuclear power plant in the documents stored in the memory stick, Chung said, in a rejection of the allegations that the documents might have included the idea of establishing an atomic energy plant.

He said the same memory stick was also given to the United States.

The documents in it were largely about economic cooperation initiatives, including one in the energy sector related to renewable energy and the modernization of hydropower and thermal power plants in the North, he said. (Yonhap)