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S.Korean President's Right Hand Resigns Over Scandal
South Korean Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-won, a righthand man of President Kim Dae-jung, resigned Wednesday over an alleged scandal.
Park, who has been under increased fire for alleged influence-peddling in an illegal loan from the domestic Hanvit Bank, resigned after prosecutors recently re-launched investigation into the allegations in which Park was accused of involving in the multi-billion-won loan for one of his former aides.
South Koran presidential spokesman Park Joon-young told reporters that President Kim Dae-jung has accepted Park's resignation so that Park could help the investigation not as a public figure but as a common individual and the prosecution could bring light to the allegations clearly.
Kim Dae-jung immediately appointed Kim Han-gill, chief secretary of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party, as Park's replacement.
The 58-year-old Park, who has been known as one of Kim's confidants for years, played a major role in the inter-Korean secret negotiations in China to produce an agreement for the historic Pyongyang inter-Korean summit last June.
Park said that he decided to resign so as not to give a heavy burden to Kim's running of state affairs.
"I hope that all the suspicions including the false accusations against me could be brought to light by the prosecution," said Park, who had served as a presidential spokesman before taking the position of minister in May 1999.
Kim Hang-gill was a renowned best-seller writer in South Korea before joining politics as a special adviser to Kim Dae-jung of then opposition National Congress for New Politics party in 1996.
He once served as senior presidential secretary for policy planning and head of the planning of the election campaign headquarters for the ruling Millennium Democratic Party.
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