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Prosecutors to wrap up probe into missing summit transcript in one month

Sept. 23, 2013 - 16:01 By 윤민식

An ongoing prosecution probe into the disappearance of a 2007 inter-Korean summit transcript will be completed in one month, a state prosecutor close to the investigation said Monday.

State prosecutors have been probing to determine whether the late South Korean liberal President Roh Moo-hyun seriously undermined the country's sovereignty during his 2007 summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il by offering to surrender the western maritime border with the North. 

"We are doing our best to wrap up the case as soon as possible," the prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said, adding that "the investigation will be finished before November at the latest."

The probe comes after a bipartisan parliamentary body failed to locate the transcript at the national archives and later concluded that it was missing from the files for reasons unknown.

The ruling Saenuri Party then filed complaints with the prosecution office, asking that the investigative authorities find those responsible for the mysterious disappearance.

The Saenuri claimed the former Roh administration destroyed the file to delete evidence of the then-president's remarks during the summit, while the opposition Democratic Party accused the government of Roh's successor, former President Lee Myung-bak, of tampering with it.

For the past one month, state prosecutors have been searching the Roh administration records kept at the National Archives of Korea in Seongnam, just south of Seoul.

"We have not yet looked though the entire records but have come up with some results," the prosecutor said, adding that the prosecution office will soon summon officials of the Roh administration for questioning. (Yonhap News)