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Seoul in panic over leaked US diplomatic cables
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Seoul in panic over leaked US diplomatic cables
ANN - Friday, December 3
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Seoul (The Korea Herald/ANN) - Days after a massive leak of U.S. diplomatic cables unveiled sensitive comments by Seoul officials, the South Korean government appears lost on how to deal with revelations that could cause tension with regional powers.
The confidential documents were brought to public attention by online whistleblower WikiLeaks this week, unveiling the contents of private conversations between South Korean and U.S. diplomats about North Korea and other foreign policies.
The documents not only revealed South Korea's confidential plans in dealing with the Kim Jong-il regime in Pyongyang, but also some harsh personal opinions about officials in China and elsewhere, serving as a potential source of diplomatic tension.
"I do not think it is appropriate for me to talk about documents of another country," spokesman of Seoul's Foreign Ministry Kim Young-sun said in a press briefing Monday, declining to comment further on the issue.
But ministry officials admitted the graveness of the situation, saying they would have to discuss the matter with Washington before making a move.
"The situation is very serious and concerning," an official said, asking not to be named. "When such details of diplomatic negotiations are made public, the revelation itself causes problems with diplomatic trust. We are also highly concerned of causing unnecessary misunderstandings among involved countries."
The incident may also negatively affect diplomatic exchanges between Seoul and Washington, another official said.
"We cannot deny the situation makes one wonder how much confidential information he or she can share with U.S. diplomats," the official said.
Leaked information concerning Seoul included remarks by incumbent and former Foreign Ministers Kim Sung-hwan and Yu Myung-hwan about a failed plan to hold another inter-Korean summit, mass defection of top North Korean officials to the South and a bomb found on a passenger train en route from Pyongyang to Beijing.
The information cabled from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul also said the South Korean government estimates the ailing North Korean leader Kim to live beyond 2015 and that his communist regime would collapse two to three years after his death.
Remarks by current national security adviser and former Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-woo raised concerns regarding relations with Beijing.
According to the leaked documents, Chun called China's chief nuclear negotiator Wu Dawei "an arrogant, Marx-spouting former Red Guard who knows nothing about North Korea, nothing about nonproliferation and is hard to communicate with because he doesn't speak English."
None of the officials have made an official response to the information leakage.
"We are deliberating how best to deal with this issue," a senior government official said. "Overreacting could turn the situation into something worse."
"What is more concerning is that the information unveiled so far does not seem to be all," the official added. "But the government does not see this as an alarming incident to national security and other diplomatic issues."
WikiLeaks is believed to have nearly 2,000 cables sent from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and less than a dozen have been made public so far.
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