Lee: “All claims that Jeong Dong-young leaked classified information are wrong”
Jeong Dong-young: “I mentioned Guseong last July… nobody said anything then”
Jeong Dong-young: “I mentioned Guseong last July… nobody said anything then”
President Lee Jae-myung on April 20 pushed back against claims that Unification Minister Jeong Dong-young’s reference to the Guseong nuclear site prompted the United States to curb intelligence sharing on North Korea, saying, “I want to investigate in detail why something so absurd happened.”
He wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Any claim or action premised on the idea that Minister Jeong leaked classified information the U.S. provided is wrong.”
Lee added that academic studies and news reporting had already identified a facility at Guseong well before Minister Jeong’s remark — a matter he described as an established fact.
Earlier, a South Korean news outlet reported that the United States had recently lodged protests with Seoul’s foreign, security and intelligence agencies and had moved to restrict some satellite intelligence on North Korea that it had been sharing.
The outlet said the U.S. measures followed Minister Jeong’s mention of the “Guseong nuclear facility.” On the 6th of last month, Jeong told the National Assembly that, in addition to the previously known uranium-enrichment sites at Yongbyon in North Pyongan Province and Kangson in Nampo, Guseong should also be considered.
At the Seoul Government Complex the same day, Minister Jeong told reporters he believed the controversy over alleged leaks and the U.S. decision to limit information sharing involved material already in the public domain. He pointed to past reports from the U.S. think tank the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and South Korean media, which had identified Guseong as a suspected nuclear site.
“I mentioned Guseong at my confirmation hearing on July 14 last year, and nobody raised an issue then,” he said. “For this to be brought up nine months later is suspicious; I’m bewildered.”
