While lawmakers continue their political tit-for-tat over bribery scandals involving President Park Geun-hye’s close associates, an unlikely figure has shifted political talk in a completely new direction.

Former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, in his memoir released last week, said that presidential aides and cabinet members serving at the previous, liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration had inquired of North Korea about whether Seoul should vote to adopt a 2007 UN resolution condemning Pyeongyang’s human rights situation.

In the book titled “Moving the Glacier,” the 68-year-old retired diplomat, known for his assertive stance against the reclusive regime’s dismal human right condition, claimed that his objection to the inquiry was shot down by others including former Minjoo Party of Korea’s leader Moon Jae-in, who then served as presidential chief of staff. 
“I insisted that we should approve the vote for longer term; It was quite obvious what sort of answer we would get if we asked North Korea (about the vote),” he wrote. “After a long debate, we concluded that we should ask. I can’t argue anymore.”

After hearing a negative response from the North, Song said, the Roh administration decided to withdraw the vote that the government had approved a year earlier. Song described the incident as one of the moments he “felt ashamed of” his 33-year-old career.

The eight-page description, an excerpt from the 550-page book, put Song, who now works as a president of the University of North Korean Studies, into the national spotlight as his former colleagues disputed his claim and political parties subjected his book to partisan conflict.

Those who attended the meeting with Song asserted that the memoir contains information based on an “inaccurate memory,” reflecting a “biased view” from a former minister who tends to adopt a more assertive tone against Pyongyang by working in tandem with the international community and the United States.

“I don’t think Song’s book is accurate because memoirs are often self-centered,” a former Minister of Unification Lee Jae-jung said in a media interview Monday. The former minister noted that he agreed on the abstention and clashed with Song throughout the decision-making process.

The minister, one of the staunchest advocates of the Roh administration’s rapprochement policy toward the North, argued that their decision to contact North Korea was not to “inquire” about Pyeongyang’s position, but to “notify” of Seoul’s decision adopted by the majority of the presidential aides and Cabinet members.

Kim Man-bok, a former director of the National Intelligence Service, also disputed Song’s claim that the former chief was the first one to propose the idea of asking the North. He denounced the minister for leaking classified information and vowed to testify before the lawmakers to prove himself.

Describing the mounting controversy over his book as “unhelpful” to building effective policies toward North Korea and its nuclear threat, Song maintained that his memoir contains the truth and urged the people to see the book in a boarder context.

“Pulling just one piece of the book dealing with two Korea’s unification and North Korea’s nuclear weapon does not do any justice to anyone,” Song told reporters in the afternoon. “My book is based on records, not memories.”

The minister went on to defend the accusation that his book, published just a year away from the 2017 presidential election, has a political motive targeting the opposition parties’ front-runner Moon Jae-in while promoting politicians close to him such as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Rep. Park Bum-kye of the Minjoo Party claimed Monday that Song devoted hefty portions of his book to praising the tenure of Ban, who served as foreign minister between 2004 and 2006 before Song took over his job.

“I began writing the book three years ago and tried to publish it last year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 19 Joint Statement,” he said, referring to the landmark 2005 agreement calling for verifiable denuclearization of the North. “But it took a year more than I thought,” Song said.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)