By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

President Roh Moo-hyun is considering sacking his defense minister over the military’s misleading report and cover-up concerning the July 14 inter-Korean naval incident, according to sources on Monday.

A senior ruling party official said on condition of anonymity that ``it would be inevitable’’ that Defense Minister Cho Young-kil will be brought to account for the recent scandal, which displayed a lack of discipline in the military.

Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Jong-min said ``nothing has yet been fixed’’ on that matter, but did not rule out the possibility by adding ``I cannot comment on the atmosphere in the ruling party.’’

The presidential office first wanted to seal the case by just giving relatively soft warnings to several high- and mid-level officials without sacking Minister Cho, but seemed to have changed its mind after his remarks on Saturday.

While attending a National Assembly session, he revealed that the South Korean navy had deliberately concealed radio messages from North Korea, fearing possible instruction from superiors not to fire warning shots.

Cho’s remarks overturned his ministry’s announcement on Friday that the omission of the important information was a technical mistake made by some officials’ ``carelessness’’ and there was no intentional scheme to hide it.

As the military scandal was rekindled, the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) employed a tougher stance yesterday to urge Chong Wa Dae to punish top military brass, including Minister Cho.

``The recent scandal is linked to the slackness of military discipline and national identity,’’ Rep. Hwang Jin-ha, a retired three-star army general, said during his party’s morning meeting.

As the military scandal showed signs of intensifying the confrontation between the ruling and opposition camps, Chong Wa Dae seemed to have hurried to block the development, sources said.

For Cho’s successor, Roh is looking at some candidates without high-profile military backgrounds, a ruling party official said. Calls have recently been rising for a nonmilitary defense minister as part of efforts to ``civilianize’’ the military, a transformation that has been proposed since the early 1990s.

The Defense Ministry, in the meantime, on Monday said that Lt. Gen. Park Sung-chun had tendered his resignation and was relieved of his post as the chief intelligence director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The Defense Security Command has investigated Park for a week for allegedly leaking military secrets regarding the July 14 incident to the media. According to sources, the military investigators concluded that, while the information leaked by Park was not confidential, he did violate some minor rules.

In a separate event, the JCS said two small fishing boats believed to be North Korean briefly crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL), serving as a western sea border between the two Koreas, but returned to their territory a few minutes later.

A JCS official said North Korea’s navy did not respond to the South Korean navy’s repeated calls sent through the recently established radio hotline.

On July 14, South Korea’s JCS said the Navy fired two warning shots toward a suspected North Korean ship as it intruded into southern waters ignoring its repeated calls through radio hotline not to cross the sea border.

However, it was found a day later that the Navy fired warning shots even after receiving messages from the North that the approaching ship was a Chinese fishing boat, not North Korean.

As disputes grew, the Navy defended its action saying the vessel was in fact a North Korean ship and that it did nothing wrong in repelling the intruder as it fired warning shots in accordance with the rules of engagement.

However, the Navy found itself in further trouble after it was later revealed that it did not report to higher command, the JCS, that there actually were radio exchanges between the two Koreas during a few critical minutes of the incident.

An investigation was launched over the case at the president’s instruction on July 16, and after a weeklong inquiry, five officers, including the commander in chief of the Navy’s fleet operations were found responsible.

While revealing the outcome of its inquiry, the investigators said on July 23 that the event was caused by a combination of the Navy’s stringent alertness since the bloody naval clash between the two Koreas in 2002 and some high-level officers’ poor understanding of the recent developments in inter-Korean relations.

Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Nam Dae-youn said during the same press conference that Minister Cho proposed stern punishments for two general-grade officers and relatively softer measures for three lower-level officials.

President Roh, however, instructed his defense minister to punish the five officials with ``warnings’’ in consideration of military morale, punishments much gentler than widely expected.

But the event took a new twist when Minister Cho overturned the July 23 announcement last Saturday by telling the Assembly that the mistaken report was actually made on purpose.

In a historic agreement between the rival militaries last month, South and North Korea decided to have their navies share a radio frequency to avoid accidental clashes on the West Sea.

The NLL on the West Sea has been a constant source of conflict between the two Koreas. Navy vessels from the two sides clashed in 1999 and 2002 during the crab-catching season, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.

The North has refused to accept the NLL, claiming it was unilaterally drawn by the U.S.-led United Nations Command after the 1950-53 Korean War. Experts say the recently frequent violations of the NLL by North Korean boats seem to be a highly calculated tactic to nullify the poorly marked sea border.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr