Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries candidate Park Jun-young apologized for his wife's suspicion of illegal import and sale of expensive ceramics and said, "We will take action according to the opinion of the Korea Customs Service."



Candidate Park, who was present at the National Assembly's personnel hearing, said, "I regret that I am sorry for this unfortunate occurrence" when asked what is the position on the allegations.



Candidate Park emphasized, "Because there is a problem of violation of the customs law, we are discussing how to solve this problem with the Korea Customs Service."



He added, "The problem is so big and the wiping is difficult, so we are currently shutting down our business and we will not operate a cafe in the future," he added. "We are currently looking for a buyer."



Candidate Park said, "When I was working at the British embassy for three years, my wife started buying British accessories and these parts as a hobby, and I brought them in through customs." I thought,'Would you like to run a cafe?'



He said, "However, since there were some customers who wanted small items during the operation, some of the sales activities were carried out."



Candidate Park's wife is said to have been brought in without paying customs duties after purchasing a large amount of ceramic ornaments while her husband served as a construction councilor at the Korean Embassy from 2015 to 2018.



There are also suspicions of illegally selling it in Korea.



However, Candidate Park said, "I didn't unpack (I didn't unpack my pottery) after taking a vacation and helping my wife clean up pottery when the pan-government TF meeting was held on October 30, last year, regarding Japan's decision to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant to the ocean." And denied it.



Candidate Park explained, "As Japan's decision to release to sea was postponed, the (government meeting) changed similarly to the working-level meeting, and five out of nine ministries attended the meeting on that day.



Along with ceramics, suspicion of smuggling the chandelier that was posted on his wife's SNS has also been raised.



Rep. Kim Seon-gyo, the power of the people, said, "I checked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the candidate lived (in England) is only 30 pyeong."



He also criticized "the chandelier is only 8 visible in the picture," and "I thought it was a picture of a treasure taken from a shipwreck when I first encountered it."



In response, Candidate Park argued that "there are two in the middle of the picture," he said.



Candidate Park said, "I apologize for not meeting the standards of the people because of my poor behavior," in response to the suspicion of his wife's import and sale of porcelain in all remarks at the hearing.



In addition, regarding Japan's decision to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, "I will thoroughly check if there is any effect on Korea.”



(Photo = Yonhap News)