Foreign Reporters Call for Park to Come Clean

Foreign correspondents opine President Park Geun-hye’s failure to clear up allegations that the spy agency interfered in the Dec. 19 presidential election could discredit her and negatively impact her governance.

“President Park should allow an investigation into the matter to take place. Whether she benefitted from the NIS activity is another matter, one that might be quite difficult to prove,” said one foreign correspondent based in Seoul.

“It is a complicated issue. But few things are pretty clear, that it’s hard to gauge just how or whether the online postings affected the 19th presidential election last year, and that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) violated the principles of democracy and the Constitution,” the reporter said on condition of anonymity.

Another said that Park would come out of the scandal unscathed.

“I think the controversy is weaker now. Just like former President Roh Moo-hyun momentarily staggered in his presidency, President Park may momentarily falter but I believe that she will carry out the five years of her term,” said Sinasi Alpago, a journalist with Turkey’s Cihan News Agency.

Sinasi said that no conservative civic group has come out to say that the alleged NIS meddling in the election was wrong.

He said it could be assumed that the interference may have helped the President but what was done was...

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