South Korea's intelligence chief has offered his resignation to President Roh Moo-hyun, and the president is expected to accept it, Roh's spokesman Yoon Tae-young said Friday.
"Kim Seung-kyu, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), visited the president Thursday afternoon and expressed his intention to resign to help facilitate the formation of his new foreign and security policy team," Yoon said.
"The president did not show any specific response," he said, indicating Kim's resignation offer would be accepted.
Kim took office as NIS chief in 2005.
The latest resignation offer would further widen the scope of the upcoming shakeup of the Roh administration's foreign policy and national security team.
Following Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who expressed his wish to quit in mid-November to prepare for his new job as the U.N. secretary-general, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok offered to resign earlier this week, holding themselves responsible for "confused" policies on the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Seoul-Washington military alliance.
"The president had intended to separate the reshuffle of his foreign and security team from the replacement of the NIS chief.
But the situation changed due to Kim's resignation," said a ranking official at Roh's office Cheong Wa Dae.
"With Song Min-soon, chief presidential secretary for security policy, favored as new foreign minister, all members of the foreign and security policy team will be replaced."
Defense chief Yoon and Lee are being mentioned as among the strongest candidates to be Kim's successor, while former presidential security advisor Kwon Jin-ho as well as Kim Man-bok, the first deputy director of the NIS, and Lee Jong-baek, chief of the Seoul High Court, are also emerging among the candidates.
Political watchers and some NIS staff expressed surprise at Kim's sudden resignation offer as he had been expected to retain his post, particularly from the standpoint of policy consistency.
In this sense, some cautiously link his sudden resignation to the NIS's widening probe into a pro-North Korean espionage ring implicating members of the so-called 386ers. The 386ers refer to the people in their 40s, who were born in the 1960s and fought against the military governments during the 1980s.
The NIS on Thursday arrested five former student radicals on charges of spying for the communist North and is currently investigating if they have had contacts with 386er politicians from ruling and opposition parties. The Roh administration was elected thanks to strong support from the 386ers. The outgoing NIS director is a strong advocate of the anti-communist National Security Law.
Roh has carried out several partial shakeups of his foreign and security policy team but it would be the first time to change the entire security lineup.
Despite the sweeping reshuffle, however, the Roh administration is unlikely to change the basic direction of its engagement policy toward North Korea, government sources and political watchers speculated.
Seoul has faced growing international calls to revise its policies toward Pyongyang following the United Nations' weapons and financial sanctions on the North for its Oct. 9 nuclear test.
Seoul, Oct. 27 (Yonhap News)
NIS director offers resignation to President Roh |
