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The Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday that a Korean diplomat working for the National Intelligence Service (NIS) was involved in fund-raising campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, causing concern among U.S. officials that Korea may have tried to exert some influence on the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Citing anonymous Korean and American officials, AP said it was revealed that Consul Chung Byung-man at the Korean Consulate in Los Angeles was in fact an intelligence agent working for the NIS. Chung returned to Korea in May amid speculation he had been involved in the election campaigns of the Kerry camp and the Democratic Party.
AP also said the U.S. State of Department had discussed Chung¡¯s activities with the Korean government. A legal spokesman at the department told AP that if the speculation were true, it would constitutes a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention that forbids diplomats to interfere in a host country¡¯s domestic affairs.
According to AP, Chung had met on several occasions Rick Yi, a Korean-American who engaged in fund-raising activities for Kerry and resigned in July, and led the establishment of the ¡°Korea-American Leadership Conference.¡± Ha Ki-hwan, the president of the Korean-American Federation of LA, told AP it was not even a secret that Chung was a member of the NIS.
The FBI said that it could not investigate Chung because he left the U.S. in May. Meanwhile, NIS said it was nothing but groundless and fictitious rumor that Chung tried to influence U.S. politics, AP reported.
(Heo Yong-beom, heo@chosun.com )
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