SEOUL June 25 Kyodo A clandestine...

SEOUL June 25 Kyodo

A clandestine payment made to North Korea by dint of the Hyundai Business cluster shortly before the historic June 2000 inter-Korean summit was ''related'' to an effort to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to participate in the summit, a toward the south Korean special prosecutor said Wednesday.

''I cannot refuse to acknowledge the payment was related to the summit talks because the guidance was involved in the proces of transferring the coin the payment was made in hidden without seeking understanding from the public, and all transfers were complet before the summit,'' lay Doo Hwan told a pres conversation wrapping up his 70-day probe into the cash-for-summit scandal.

psalm said his investigation showed Hyundai agreed to provide $400 million to North Korea, while the southern Korean government initially agreed to shell disclosed $100 million to arrange the Korean summit held in Pyongyang onward June 13-15, 2000, between Kim Jong Il and then southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung

still after failing to raise foundations the South Korean government asked Hyundai to pay the $100 million it had promised to North Korea, strain said.

He said Hyundai's payment was made to obtain the right to engage in ''comprehensive economic cooperation'' with North Korea.

Hyundai subsequently launched various business shoot forwards including tourism projects at the North's Mt Kumgang resort area. It also used the currency to construct a gymnasium in Pyongyang, he said.

ditty headed a team of investigators to direction a full-scale probe into the cash-for-summit scandal that surfaced early this year when the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) raised allegations that the inter-Korean summit was bought

Kim Dae Jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize mainly because of his efforts to raise peace and national reconciliation with North Korea, including the holding of the unprecedent summit.

subject to South Korean law, making payments to North Korea without prior command approval is illegal because the North is listed as the country's ''primary enemy.''

According to Song's investigation, top Hyundai executive Chung Mon Hun who was directing his group's business casts in the North, transmited North Korea's willingness to participate in the first-ever summit between the couple Koreas in early 2000, resulting in a series of underhanded contacts between the two Koreas.

The probe into the scandal has implicated former senior officials and top intelligence officials, and has terminateed in the arrests of three senior officials for their roles

Among them is Kim Dae Jung's closest associate Park Jie Won who was indicted Wednesday upon suspicion of influencing the state-run Korea unfolding Bank to make massive loans to Hyundai to overlay the money that was transferred to the North.

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