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S. Korea, RI address document theft saga
After an embarrassing break-in at a visiting Indonesian official’s hotel room in Seoul on Monday made regional headlines, Indonesian and South Korean officials are trying to find an exit strategy to the incident
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fter an embarrassing break-in at a visiting Indonesian official’s hotel room in Seoul on Monday
made regional headlines, Indonesian and South Korean officials are trying to find an exit strategy to the incident.
To add to damage already done, South Korean media outlet reports confirmed Monday that the three intruders who broke into the room of Indonesian presidential envoys at Seoul’s Lotte Hotel to steal documents on the morning of Feb. 16 were agents from Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
The Chosun Ilbo daily reported that NIS agents were apparently desperate to obtain Indonesia’s negotiation strategy for the purchase of South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainer jets, K2 Black Panther main battle tanks, and portable surface-to-air missiles as South Korea faced fierce competition from Russia’s Yak-130 trainer jet.
The Korean government has been working hard to win an export deal from Indonesia after negotiations with the United Arab Emirates and Singapore faltered. One T-50 jet is priced at US$25 million, and South Korea aims to export 1,000 by 2030.
“The NIS tried to find out the negotiation strategy of the Indonesian delegation in pursuit of national interests. It was an unintended consequence that they were caught,” the newspaper quoted an official as saying.
South Korean and Indonesian officials were quick to dismiss the report.
However, the fervor of Indonesian and Korean officials in playing down the humiliating incident led to contradictions, with Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa saying the delegation did not report the case to the Seoul police while deputy defense minister Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin confirmed a police report had been filed.
Hatta, who led a delegation of 50 officials to Seoul between Feb. 14 and 17, said the intrusion into the hotel room where Indonesian officials were staying was a case of misunderstanding.
He said the three presumably Asian intruders were actually hotel guests who entered the wrong room.
“Instead of entering room 1961 the guests unintentionally entered room 2061, where an Industry Ministry official was staying,” Hatta said on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting at the Bogor Presidential Palace.
“The misunderstanding was immediately cleared up and the laptop that was unintentionally turned on by the guests contained only slide-show presentations on the state of our industry, which was to be presented by Industry Minister M.S. Hidayat to Korean counterparts,” he added.
Sjafrie, however, said rumors about a document theft spread because the Indonesian defense attaché in Seoul was involved in assisting local police settle the case of the intruders.
“This has somehow been interpreted differently,” Sjafrie said.
In Seoul, the Yonhap News Agency reported that the Korean Foreign Ministry confirmed that Indonesia had officially requested a verification of break-in reports.
Indonesia Ambassador to Korea Nicholas Tandi Dammen visited the foreign ministry on Monday morning to discuss the issue.
