South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol said on Monday that "incorrect" media reports about his comments damaged his country's alliance with the United States after he was heard over an open speaker cursing members of the US Congress.
South Korean journalists published a video clip of President Yoon hurling insults through an open loudspeaker, as he left a meeting in New York last Wednesday, and the meeting was after a short meeting with his American counterpart, Joe Biden.
Opposition lawmakers accused the president of insulting his American counterpart and insulting South Korea, and local media reported that Yoon said in the leaked clip that President Biden would be embarrassed if Congress did not pass a bill related to funding a global initiative.
The South Korean president is embarrassed after he described members of the US Congress as a group of idiots while standing with some participants in the United Nations General Assembly.
The president didn't think his voice would be recorded.
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- Iyad Al-Hamoud (@Eyaaaad) September 23, 2022
Infusion content
Then, addressing his foreign minister, Park Jin, the South Korean president added, "What an embarrassment... if these bastards refuse" and the video was published by journalists in the country, and it went viral on social media platforms.
The president's press secretary denied the allegations in the clip, saying that Yun was talking about his country's parliament without mentioning the US president.
In response to a journalist's question, Yun - who took office last May - said that harming the alliance (with the United States) by publishing reports whose content differs from what actually happened puts people at great risk, "calling for efforts to publish the facts."
The Democratic Party, the largest opposition party in South Korea, had called on the country's president to apologize for what came in the video, and to dismiss his national security adviser, his deputy, as well as the foreign minister.
joint maneuvers
Today, Seoul and Washington began their first joint naval exercise near the peninsula in five years, a day after Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile.
Washington is Seoul's main security ally and has about 28,500 troops on South Korean soil to protect it from its nuclear-armed North.
The conservative South Korean president has vowed to step up joint military exercises with the United States after years of failed diplomacy with North Korea under his predecessor.
The South Korean Navy said in a statement that this four-day joint exercise aims to "demonstrate the strong will of the South Korean-US alliance" to respond to North Korean provocations.
The military training is taking place on the east coast of South Korea, and more than 20 ships and a variety of aircraft are participating in the exercises, and the exercises include anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare operations, tactical maneuvers and other naval operations.