Yoon says alliance with U.S. damaged by untrue reports

PRESIDENT Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday said untrue media reports of his remarks caught on hot mic damaged South Korea’s alliance with the U.S. in his first response to the controversy.

Earlier, Yoon was caught on video making a remark privately to aides in New York that appeared to include vulgar words.

Though the recording was not clear due to noise, many thought Yoon was talking about U.S. Congress and U.S. President Joe Biden.

But Yoon’s office rejected the claim, saying he was referring to South Korea’s opposition-controlled National Assembly without mentioning U.S. Congress or Biden.

Yoon’s ruling People Power Party also claimed people misheard Yoon’s remarks because the video had a subtitle misrepresenting them.

“Damaging the alliance with untrue media reports would be putting people in danger,’’ Yoon told reporters, adding that how such incorrect reports have circulated should be clearly verified.

Yoon returned home following a three-nation trip that took him to London for Queen Elizabeth II’S state funeral, New York for the U.N. General Assembly and Canada for a summit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In New York, Yoon asked Biden to resolve South Korea’s concerns over the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is feared to negatively impact Korean-made electric cars.

Yoon told reporters that Biden “fully understands’’ South Korea’s stance over the IRA.

Yoon also held an informal meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in New York, marking the first bilateral meeting between South Korea and Japan in nearly three years.

The meeting between Yoon and Kishida raised hope of mending relations badly frayed over wartime forced labor and other issues related to Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Yoon said he will “strongly push for normalisation of Korea-japan relations, regardless of any difficulties.’’

“Above all, Korean and Japanese companies were eager to normalise relations of the two countries,’’ Yoon said.

“I am confident that if Korea-japan relations are normalised, companies from both countries will invest in each other, creating more jobs on both sides and helping the two countries grow further .’’( yon hap/ nan)